Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 - by Glenn-Marie Lange & Quentin Wodon & Kevin Carey Paperback

About the Book

"Countries regularly track gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of their economic progress, but not wealth the assets such as infrastructure, forests, minerals, and human capital that produce GDP. In contrast, corporations routinely report on both their income and assets to assess their economic health and prospects for the future. Wealth accounts allow countries to take stock of their assets to monitor the sustainability of development, an urgent concern today for all countries. [This book] covers national wealth for 141 countries over 20 years (1995 2014) as the sum of produced capital, 19 types of natural capital, net foreign assets, and human capital overall as well as by gender and type of employment...New data substantially improve estimates of natural capital, and, for the first time, human capital is measured by using household surveys to estimate lifetime earnings. [This book] begins with a review of global and regional trends in wealth over the past two decades and provides examples of how wealth accounts can be used for the analysis of development patterns. Several chapters discuss the new work on human capital and its application in development policy. The book then tackles elements of natural capital that are not yet fully incorporated in the wealth accounts: air pollution, marine fisheries, and ecosystems."--

Book Synopsis

National income is underpinned by a country's wealth--measured comprehensively to include all assets, produced capital, human capital, natural capital and net financial assets--and sustained economic growth over the long term requires investment in this broad portfolio of assets. While a macroeconomic indicator like GDP provides an important measure of economic progress, it does not reflect changes in the underlying asset base, and hence, used alone, may provide misleading signals about the state of the economy. GDP does not reflect depreciation and depletion of assets, whether accumulation of wealth keeps pace with population growth, or whether the mix of different assets will support a country's development goals. GDP indicates whether an economy is growing; Comprehensive Wealth indicates the prospects for maintaining economic growth over the long term. Economic performance is best evaluated by monitoring both. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2017 is the latest report on Comprehensive Wealth by the World Bank. It provides a time series from 1995 to 2014 for 140 countries, covering produced capital, 19 types of natural capital, net foreign assets, and, for the first time, an explicit measure of human capital, based on the well-known Jorgenson-Fraumeni lifetime earnings approach. Trends in wealth and sustainable development are assessed, and wealth accounts are used to address a range of important development topics such as economic diversification of resource rich economies, and the gains in national wealth that could be achieved by universal primary education.