Well-Being, Front and Center: A Note on the Sarkozy Report

The Sarkozy Report is a study commissioned by the French President on better ways to measure the level and progress of societal well-being than conventional economic indicators such as GDP. Despite being prepared by prominent economists—the commission was led by Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi—the Report rejects reliance on “production-oriented” measures of progress in favor of a broader array of quality-of-life indicators, some of them subjective, and measures of the sustainability of well-being into the future. These multiple dimensions of well-being, it argues, should be used in policy decisions and welfare evaluations. The views expressed in the Report may portend a sea-change in the way economists think about the benefits of economic growth.