Ph.D. student Raluca-Maria BĂLĂ (ralucamaria.bala@gmail.com)
The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
Abstract
Over the last two decades many economists, sociologists and other researchers expressed their views concerning the importance of using economic welfare as an instrument for socio-economic policies instead of relying only on economic growth. This paper aims to present on one hand the weaknesses of the most important macroeconomic aggregate, GDP, in the characterization of the economic welfare of citizens and on the other hand intends to provide some evidence for the theoretical criticism made to GDP, with reference to the case of Romania, taking into account three essential components in quantifying the sustainable economic welfare of the citizens in a country: the social, economic and environmental part. Thus, it is proposed an index more appropriate than GDP in measuring economic welfare for Romania and it is compared their evolution on the last twenty years.
JEL: E01, E21, I31.
