Rethinking Growth: Intergenerational Justice Calls for Inclusive Wealth Over GDP
Experts argue that economic policy should prioritize preserving and expanding inclusive wealth for future generations rather than chasing higher GDP alone.
Recent calls from the World Inequality Lab’s Global Justice Report and a United Nations high-level expert group advocate for a shift away from GDP-centric growth targets toward a dashboard of sustainable well-being indicators. The author frames this shift as a matter of intergenerational justice, emphasizing that governments must leave future generations at least as much wealth as they inherit. Historical perspectives from Adam Smith’s notion of capital, John Rawls’s ‘just savings’, and the work of Nobel laureates Kenneth Arrow and Robert Solow illustrate the long-standing debate over preserving capital stocks.
Economists such as John Hartwick, Partha Dasgupta and Amartya Sen have further linked sustainable development to the maintenance of natural, human and produced assets. The article proposes ‘inclusive wealth’ accounting as a practical tool to track these assets, arguing it reveals whether growth is built on genuine wealth creation or on the depletion of resources essential for future prosperity.
Why it matters
Understanding inclusive wealth helps societies avoid compromising future generations while pursuing economic growth.
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