Historical wealth accounts for Britain : progress and puzzles in measuring the sustainability of economic growth
Abstract
Estimates of Britain's comprehensive wealth are reported for the period 1760-2000. They include measures of produced, natural, and human capital, and illustrate the changing composition of Britain's assets over this time period. We show how genuine savings, GS (a year-on-year measure of the change in total capital and a claimed indicator of sustainable development) has evolved over time. Changes in total wealth are compared to alternative, investment-based measures of GS, including variants augmented with the value of exogenous technology. Additionally, the possible effects of population change on wealth, and the implications of including carbon-dioxide emissions in natural capital are considered.
Citation
McLaughlin , E , Hanley , N , Greasley , D , Kunnas , J , Oxley , L & Warde , P 2014 , ' Historical wealth accounts for Britain : progress and puzzles in measuring the sustainability of economic growth ' , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , vol. 30 , no. 1 , pp. 44-69 . https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/gru002
Publication
Oxford Review of Economic Policy
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0266-903XType
Journal article
Description
We thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding this research under the project ‘History and the Future’.Collections
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