Wellbeing economy: An effective paradigm to mainstream post-growth policies?

Lorenzo Fioramonti, Luca Coscieme*, Robert Costanza, Ida Kubiszewski, Katherine Trebeck, Stewart Wallis, Debra Roberts, Lars F. Mortensen, Kate E. Pickett, Richard Wilkinson, Kristín Vala Ragnarsdottír, Jacqueline McGlade, Hunter Lovins, Roberto De Vogli

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    91 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The concept of ‘wellbeing economy’ (WE), that is, an economy that pursues human and ecological wellbeing instead of material growth, is gaining support amongst policymakers, business, and civil society. Over the past couple of years, several national governments have adopted the WE as their guiding framework to design development policies and assess social and economic progress. While it shares a number of basic principles with various post-growth conceptualisations, the WE's language and concepts tend to be more adaptable to different social and economic contexts, thus penetrating into policy processes and connecting to a variety of cultural traits, not only in advanced economies but also in less industrialised nations. In this paper, we describe the key features of the WE, including its approach to key concepts like work, productivity and technology and several examples of its policy impact. We conclude by positing that the WE framework may be one of the most effective bases to mainstream post-growth policies at the national and global level.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number107261
    JournalEcological Economics
    Volume192
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Feb 2022

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Wellbeing economy: An effective paradigm to mainstream post-growth policies?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this