Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Jan 12;365(1537):5-11. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0231.
In this paper, I formalize the idea of sustainable development in terms of intergenerational well-being. I then sketch an argument that has recently been put forward formally to demonstrate that intergenerational well-being increases over time if and only if a comprehensive measure of wealth per capita increases. The measure of wealth includes not only manufactured capital, knowledge and human capital (education and health), but also natural capital (e.g. ecosystems). I show that a country's comprehensive wealth per capita can decline even while gross domestic product (GDP) per capita increases and the UN Human Development Index records an improvement. I then use some rough and ready data from the world's poorest countries and regions to show that during the period 1970-2000 wealth per capita declined in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, even though the Human Development Index (HDI) showed an improvement everywhere and GDP per capita increased in all places (except in sub-Saharan Africa, where there was a slight decline). I conclude that, as none of the development indicators currently in use is able to reveal whether development has been, or is expected to be, sustainable, national statistical offices and international organizations should now routinely estimate the (comprehensive) wealth of nations.
本文从代际福利的角度对可持续发展的理念进行了形式化描述。然后，我简略地介绍了最近正式提出的一个论点，以证明如果且仅当人均综合财富增加，那么代际福利就会随着时间的推移而增加。财富的衡量标准不仅包括制造业资本、知识和人力资本（教育和健康），还包括自然资本（如生态系统）。我表明，即使人均国内生产总值（GDP）增加，联合国人类发展指数记录有所改善，一个国家的人均综合财富仍可能下降。然后，我使用来自世界上最贫穷国家和地区的一些粗略数据，表明在 1970 年至 2000 年间，南亚和撒哈拉以南非洲的人均财富下降，尽管人类发展指数（HDI）显示各地都有所改善，而且所有地方的人均 GDP 都有所增加（除了撒哈拉以南非洲，那里略有下降）。我得出的结论是，由于目前使用的任何发展指标都无法揭示发展是否已经或预计可持续，因此国家统计局和国际组织现在应该定期估计国家的（综合）财富。
