Page 298 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS246 Oscar Gasca Brito
measurement of economic development and social progress whose main
objective was to determine the limits of GDP as an indicator economic and
social progress.
The conclusions were overwhelming: welfare is multidimensional, the
economic indicators used, alone, are insufficient to explain population social
progress and economic growth in an increasingly changing technological
context. The commission determined that in order to delimit the notion of
welfare, in principle, at least, the following dimensions should be apprehended
simultaneously :
1
· Material living conditions (income, consumption and wealth)
· Health
· Education
· Personal activities and within them work activities
· Participation in political life and governance
· Social ties and relationships
· The environment (the present and future state)
· Insecurity, both economic and physical insecurity
2
The following recommendation is released : "the quality of life depends on
the objective conditions in which people find themselves and their dynamic
capacities. It would be convenient to improve the statistical measures of
health, education, personal activities and environmental conditions. In
addition, a particular effort should be given to the conception and application
of solid and reliable tools for measuring social relations, participation in
political life and insecurity, a set of elements that can be shown to be a good
predictor the satisfaction that people get from their life”
This assessment was reaffirmed at the UN, at the World Summit Meeting
on Sustainable Development, where it was recognized the urgent need to
complement the measurement of gross domestic product with a variety of
indicators that allow integrate both the objective and subjective dimension of
economic and social development.
The territorial indicators of well-being developed in Mexico are part of this
complex context, in which international and national community was looking
for indicators with the level of disaggregation needed to measure both
objective and subjective well-being in a complicated country with so many
disparities like is Mexico.

1 Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2009). Report by the commission on the measurement
of economic performance and social progress. Paris. http://www.stiglitzsen-
fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm
Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2009). Report by the commission on the measurement
2
of economic performance and social progress. Paris. http://www.stiglitzsen-
fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm
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