Pilot Indices of Genuine Savings for the UK and Taiwan, from 1970 to 1998

Judge Institute of Management Working Paper No. 14/2002

44 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2003

See all articles by Christopher Hope

Christopher Hope

University of Cambridge - Judge Business School

Grace Lin

University of Cambridge

Date Written: 2002

Abstract

Genuine Savings Index (GSI) is a simple indicator to assess an economy's sustainability. It defines wealth more broadly than orthodox national accounts, and recalculates national savings figures based on this new definition. Genuine Savings (GS) aim to represent the value of the net change in the whole range of assets that are important for development: produced assets, natural resources, environmental quality, and human resources.

This paper takes the broad framework developed earlier and tests its application to two countries, The UK and Taiwan, between the years 1970 and 1998 with the goal of assessing the feasibility of using such measures quite broadly as indices of sustainable development (SD). It shows both the UK and Taiwan have positive GS rates over the years, but the UK has relatively lower ones. Sources of data and methodological factors are discussed, national comparability is investigated, and the policy uses derived from the exercise are analyzed.

Keywords: genuine savings, national capital, sustainable development, economic growth, GDP, national accounting, environmental pollution, natural resource depletion

JEL Classification: O13, 015, O21, 057, Q01

Suggested Citation

Hope, Christopher and Lin, Grace, Pilot Indices of Genuine Savings for the UK and Taiwan, from 1970 to 1998 (2002). Judge Institute of Management Working Paper No. 14/2002, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=345800 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.345800

Christopher Hope (Contact Author)

University of Cambridge - Judge Business School ( email )

Trumpington Street
Cambridge, CB2 1AG
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1223 338194 (Phone)
+44 (0) 1223 339701 (Fax)

Grace Lin

University of Cambridge ( email )

Trinity Ln
Cambridge, CB2 1TN
United Kingdom

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
140
Abstract Views
1,581
Rank
410,189
PlumX Metrics