Paul Allin · David J. Hand

Changing Statistics or

Changing Lives?

From GDP to Sustainable

Wellbeing

WELLBEING IN POLITICS AND POLICY

Wellbeing in Politics and Policy

Series Editors

Ian Bache

University of Shefﬁeld

Shefﬁeld, UK

Karen Scott

Exeter University (Cornwall Campus)

Penryn, Cornwall, UK

Paul Allin

Imperial College London

London, UK

Wellbeing in Politics and Policy will bring new lenses through which

to understand the signiﬁcance of the dramatic rise of interest in wellbeing

as a goal of public policy. While a number of academic disciplines have

been inﬂuential in both shaping and seeking to explain developments,

the Politics discipline has been relatively silent, leaving important theo-

retical and empirical insights largely absent from debates: insights that

have increasing signiﬁcance as political interest grows. This series will

provide a distinctive addition to the ﬁeld that puts politics and policy at

the centre, while embracing interdisciplinary contributions. Contributions

will be encouraged from various subﬁelds of the discipline (e.g., political

theory, comparative politics, governance and public policy, international

relations) and from those located in other disciplines that speak to core

political themes (e.g., accountability, gender, inequality, legitimacy and

power). The series will seek to explore these themes through policy studies

in a range of settings – international, national and local. Comparative

studies – either of different policy areas and/or across different settings

– will be particularly encouraged. The series will incorporate a wide range

of perspectives from critical to problem-solving approaches, drawing on a

variety of epistemologies and methodologies. The series welcomes Pivots,

edited collections and monographs.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15247

Paul Allin · David J. Hand

From GDP

to Sustainable

Wellbeing

Changing Statistics or Changing Lives?

Paul Allin

Department of Mathematics

Imperial College London

London, UK

David J. Hand

Department of Mathematics

Imperial College London

London, UK

Wellbeing in Politics and Policy

ISBN 978-3-030-53084-6 ISBN 978-3-030-53085-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53085-3

Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, speciﬁcally the rights

of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on

microﬁlms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and

retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology

now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.

in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a speciﬁc statement, that such

names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and r egulations and therefore free for

general use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-

tion in this book are believed to be tr ue and accurate at the date of publication. Neither

the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with

respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been

made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps

and institutional afﬁliations.

This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature

Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

As you have opened this book, you may be as fascinated as we are by

statistics. We are especially interested in how ofﬁcial statistics feature in

politics, policy, business decision-making, and in everyday conversations.

But whether or not you are already hooked on statistics, we hope you will

continue reading because what we want to explor e, we believe, affects all

of us.

Ofﬁcial statistics are those published by governments, usually by their

national statistics ofﬁce. They are intended to be used not only within

government but also by businesses, non-governmental organisations such

as charities and trade unions, academics, the media, and the public. This

puts of ﬁcial statistics in possibly a unique position, certainly different from

that of the media. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black set down a legal

interpretation of the role of the media when he declared that “the press

was to serve the governed, not the gover nors”, in a case between the New

York Times Company and the United States Government (Legal Infor-

mation Institute, 1971). Ofﬁcial statistics are intended to serve everyone,

both the governed and the government, providing a trusted set of infor-

mation that all parties and sections of society can use. If we could achieve

such a set, this should not of course prevent discussion, debate, and argu-

ment about what to do in light of the ﬁgures. However, it should at least

reduce disagreements on the validity of the numbers themselves. That has

been a long-held ambition for ofﬁcial statistics.

vi PREFACE

In the real world, the position may be far from as simple as what we

have just suggested. For a start, just the huge volume of ofﬁcial statis-

tics—currently running at some 3570 releases of ofﬁcial statistics a year in

the UK—means that any broad-brush picture of ofﬁcial statistics needs to

recognise that this is composed of many ﬁne details. What is important,

for example, in the measurement of inﬂation is likely to be different from

what is important in describing the ethnic composition of the country.

Each topic needs particular scrutiny and understanding. Nevertheless,

there are high-level issues that apply to all sets of ofﬁcial statistics, such

as how their quality is deﬁned and measured, and how their usefulness i s

determined, and it will be these kinds of issues that we look at here.

We will look at these fundamental issues in terms of the measurement

of the wellbeing of a country, by which we mean its current levels and

distribution of wellbeing, along with its development and progress, and

whether current progress is sustainable into the future. This is all some-

times called beyond GDP. In one sense, the hero of the story is GDP,

gross domestic product, the ofﬁcial statistic that stands out as the bottom

line in the national accounts that are compiled and published regularly

(in some cases, monthly). GDP represents the total value of economic

activity in the country in the given time period. GDP is treated heroically

because it, and particularly whether it is rising o r falling over time, is often

taken as the only measure of how the country is doing. This also points

to why GDP is also a villain in some people’s eyes: it was not designed to

tell us about the state of the nation in any broader sense, and there are

many ways in which it is recognised as falling short of that. We will look

at the desire to go beyond GDP, with new measures and statistics about

the wellbeing of the nation, rather than just how the economy is doing

overall.

Sustainable development is another phrase that is used to describe

aspects of the progress of a country, particularly in political and policy

circles. There is much innovation and entr epreneurship aimed at deliv-

ering sustainable development, whether in new sources of energy, new

forms of transport, or in many, smaller examples of re-engineering existing

products and services. There also appears to be greater awareness of

sustainability, such as by associating an organisation’s goals and vision

with that of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, as we

will discuss in Chapters 3 and 4.

PREFACE vii

However, it will only be members of future generations who can decide

whether or not our development was sustainable. We have found a prolif-

eration of measures and indicators aimed at planning sustainable develop-

ment and tracking progress. We are less clear about how these are used

to build public policy. Moreover, policy is not the only way of affecting

behaviour. We suggest that there is still a need to hold conversations

about how we make commercial, social, and personal decisions, informed

by these wider measures and indicators, rather than the default of only

looking for economic growth as the goal.

In this book we look at the challenges faced in designing relevant

measures, be they of national wellbeing, sustainable development or any

other of the myriad aspects of the economy, society, and the environ-

ment. More importantly than that, we are also concerned with how to

ensure that these measures and indicators are used. We look for lessons

from the ﬁeld of poverty reduction and social protection across Europe,

where the effort in compiling indicators has not necessarily been rewarded

with progress towards meeting poverty and social exclusion goals. While

they may be good statistics in a technical sense, they might not always

be as useful—or even as much used—as they could have been. We draw

from this example, which is in an established social policy area, some

pointers for how ofﬁcial statistics might be used more effectively in what

is still an emerging policy area, that of moving beyond GDP, with a new

emphasis on wellbeing and sustainable development. Ofﬁcial statisticians

appear often to focus on a mission to deliver a particular set of statistics,

invariably chosen to meet the needs of government as their main user.

This falls short of the full potential of ofﬁcial statistics, to help under-

stand society, the economy, and the environment, to assist in formulating

where and what needs to change, and to be important tools in effecting

such changes. We stress the teleology of ofﬁcial statistics: what purposes

do they serve, rather than just compiling and publishing them as part of

the democratic process?

The outline of the book is as follows. In Chapter 1 we will discuss in

detail four points of departure for the rest of the book that we have already

mentioned: the notion of social progress; ofﬁcial statistics; the concept

and measurement of a nation’s GDP; and the beyond GDP agenda, which

among other things requires the deﬁnition and measurement of current

wellbeing together with an assessment of the sustainability of current

activities for the wellbeing of future generations. Chapter 2 discusses using

statistics to assess progress. The key issues are how the statistics are to be

viii PREFACE

used, and who the intended users are. In Chapter 3 we suggest that public

policy creates the framework for going beyond GDP. We explore the role

of public policy in effecting change and how ofﬁcial statistics are used in

this. Having a new measurement policy is ﬁne, but it is not enough even

when it is intertwined with the development of wellbeing policy. So, in

Chapter 4 we explore how to ef fect social change that improves wellbeing

and puts us on the track of sustainable development. This is where new

measures of progress can help. Chapter 5 recognises that ofﬁcial statistics

are delivered through a process that turns data into messages. We look

at inputs and outputs of this process, especially the increasing use of data

science techniques applied to new sources of big data, and the role of

media in bringing statistics into the public arena.

Our conclusions in Chapter 6 include a concrete list of recommen-

dations. We have determined these by adopting a teleological approach,

asking what are the intended uses of ofﬁcial statistics and how are they

used, or not used. Facts are all very well, but it is perhaps even more

important to ensure that measures and indicators are actually used. We

invite people to either adhere to the recommendations or to say why they

are not adopting them, rather than simply saying “that was an interesting

perspective”!

At the time of writing we are in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic,

and it remains to be seen what long-lasting impact this will have on

the global economy and on society. Whatever that impact, the matters

discussed in this book will still be of critical importance to global well-

being and sustainability. In a letter to the UK chancellor, Gr eenpeace UK

(2020) and 25 other civil society groups emphasised that “Public money

must be used to address social and environmental priorities, as well as

economic needs”. Many conversations about the nature of the recovery

from this pandemic will need to take place, conversations that should be

informed as far as possible by relevant, timely, and trusted ofﬁcial statistics.

Newport, UK

London, UK

June 2020

Paul Allin

David J. Hand

PREFACE ix

References

Greenpeace UK (2020) Open letter to the chancellor on a UK government

support package for the aviation industry. https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/

news/the-airlines-industry-wants-a-government-bailout-heres-what-needs-to-

happen/. Accessed 11 April 2020

Legal Information Institute (1971) 403 U.S. 713. https://www.law.cornell.edu/

supremecourt/text/403/713. Accessed 19 May 2020