Dr. Žiga Turk

Round Table on the Measurement and Use of Data on Social Progress and People’s

Well-Being

Conference Centre Brdo, 29 November 2010

Contents

• The 5 “ABCDE” global transformations are a challenge for policy makers.

• There are reasons to look beyond GDP– and see why Slovenia was overtaken by Czech

Republic

• There are reasons to keep GDP

ABCDE of grand transformations

• Automation and abundance• BRICs and globalization• Climate change and energy• Demography• E-everything

Our industrial model: people work

… so that they can buy a car.

The idea worked for a long time!

But they do not buy cars!

Leading to abundance of stuff in the rich world!

So we stopped selling people devices to move from one place to another!

What we sell is the ability for a 43-year-old accountantto dress in black leather, ride through small towns

and have people be afraid of him.

Plain Design Award

We spend money on design, brand …

Plain Fair-traded

And on good consciense

and more good conscience!

Some would say money does not make you more happyandmove beyondGDP

Source: Economist

But some say a dollar is worth more to the poor than to the rich.

log($) does makes people happy.

Source: Economist

But we do not have money!

So there are reasons to look at GDP and beyond • economy, consumers are looking beyond the

functional and the material• when you are reasonably well of it takes a lot

more money to be a little happier• because of the crisis right now we do not have

the money

And there are good reasons not to look only beyond GDP• we have a crisis because the GDP is down,not because people are unhappy!

• we can define– good times “joy-less outnumber the job-less”– bad times “job-less outnumber the joy-less”

• which would you rather have?

In Slovenia we always thought we are better than any of the former communist countries

But we were overtaken:

Where?

So there are messages for policymakers beyond the GDP, but

• your % of GDP for healthcare are GDP Euros.• your % of GDP for education are GDP Euros.• your % of GDP for research and development

are GDP Euros.

THE END

Credits & Inspiration

• Images:– Google Picture Search– Flickr– Wikipedia– Economist

• Inspiration– Reflection Group on the Future of Europe– Stephane Garelli– Daniel Pink