Abstract
Based on the contributions of Stiglitz et al. (2009) the Social Progress Index (SPI), a comprehensive measure of a country’s performance, was created. This paper proposes an alternative form of calculation and analyzes the relationship of the index with variables such as GDP or other measures of subjective well-being. The main results indicate that the new method of calculation provides more homogeneous results in terms of the classification of countries, compared to the original index. Thus, middle-income countries are the most susceptible to change, and the opportunities dimension is the one that would require special attention due to its low score and potential for improvement. Moreover, this dimension, together with GDP, has a statistically significant relationship with happiness (considered as a proxy for subjective well-being).References
Boyd, J. (2008). Don’t measure, don’t manage:
GDP and the missing economy of nature.
Resources for the Future, 1, 1-13. https://bit.
ly/3N66SIG
Brunner, J. & Villalobos, C. (2014). Políticas
de educación superior en Iberoamérica 2009-
Universidad Diego Portales. https://bit.
ly/38VHXbG
Chen, W. & Maitra, R. (2015). EMCluster:
EM Algorithm for Model-Based Clustering,R
Package. http://cran.rproject.org/package=EMCluster
Costanza, R., Hart, M., Posner, S. & Talberth,
J. (2009). Beyond GDP: The Need for New
Measures of Progress (The Pardee Papers No 4).
Fehder, D., Porter, M. & Stern, S. (2018). The
empirics of social progress: The interplay
between subjective well-being and societal
performance. American Economic Association
Papers and Proceedings, 108, 477-482.
https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20181036
Frey, B. & Stutzer, A. (2002). What can economists
learn from happiness research? Journal
of Economic Literature, 40(2), 402–435. https://
doi.org/10.1257/jel.40.2.402
García, M. (2002). El bienestar subjetivo.
Escritos de Psicología, 6, 18-39. https://doi.
org/10.24310/espsiescpsi.vi6.13409
Greco, S., Ishizaka, A., Tasiou, M. & Torrisi,
G. (2019). On the methodological framework
of composite indices: A review of the issues of
weighting, aggregation, and robustness. Social
Indicators Research, 141, 1-34. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s11205-017-1832-9
Helliwell, J., Layard, R. & Sachs, J. (2018).
World Happiness Report 2018. Technical
report. Sustainable Development Solutions
Network. https://worldhappiness.report/
ed/2018/
Jitmaneeroj, B. (2017). Beyond the equalweight
framework of the Social Progress
Index: Identifying causal relationships for
policy reforms. International Journal of Social
Economics, 44(12), 2336-2350. https://doi.
org/10.1108/ijse-01-2016-0011
Montuschi, L. (2017). Crecimiento económico,
progreso social y felicidad (Documentos de
Trabajo No. 620).
Pena, A. & Sánchez, J. (2010). Felicidad,
bienestar subjetivo y satisfacción en la sociedad
gallega. En J. J. Veira Veira (coord.), La
evolución de los valores sociales en Galicia
(pp. 303-342). Netbiblo. http://hdl.handle.
net/2183/18371
Porter, M., Stern, S. & Green, M. (2017).
Social Progress Index 2017. Technical Report.
Social Progress Imperative. https://bit.ly/3PKgjiF
Ray, A. (2008). Measurement of social development:
An international comparison. Social
Indicators Research, 86(1), 1-46. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s11205-007-9097-3
Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice. Harvard
University Press.
Requena, F. (2019). Opinión pública y felicidad.
Las bases sociales y políticas del bienestar
subjetivo. Panorama Social, 30, 183-198.
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=
Rojas, M. (Coord.) (2011). La medición del
progreso y del bienestar: propuestas desde
América Latina. Foro Consultivo Científico y
Tecnológico, AC. https://bit.ly/3N0Ucmf
Siddiqui, A., Ansar, W. & Mamoon, D. (2017).
Did we find alternate of GDP to measure
national progress: Analysis of HBS Social
Progress Index. Turkish Economic Review, 4(4),
-368. https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/id/
eprint/81503
Stern, S., Wares, A. & Epner, E. (2018).
Social Progress Index 2018: Methodology
report. Social Progress Imperative. Technical
Report.
Social Progress Imperative. https://bit.
ly/3lVkJoX
Stiglitz, J., Sen, A. & Fitoussi, J.P. (2009). The
measurement of economic performance and social
progress revisited: Reflections and overview
(OFCE Working Documents). https://EconPapers.
repec.org/RePEc:fce:doctra:0933
Wooldridge, J. M. (2015). Introductory
econometrics: A modern approach. Cengage
Learning.
Keywords
economic growth
well-being