Inclusive wealth accounting for South Asia: measuring towards sustainability

Abstract

Inclusive wealth is a key measuring indicator of sustainable development. Long-term development is a process of accumulation and sound management of a portfolio of assets-manufactured capital, natural capital, human and social capital. Existing indicators for measuring economic progress have many limitations such as GDP and HDI and does not focus on sustainability of the nation. Previous indicators are missing true values from the natural resource. The new indicators such as green GDP, index of sustainable and economic welfare, and genuine progress indicators are concern about sustainability. The major objective of this paper is to estimate the inclusive wealth for South Asia from the period of 1990-2010. This study has used wealth accounting methodology and aggregates the value of produced capital, human capital, forest resources and exhaustible resources. Inclusive wealth is an important instrument for human well-being. The main implication of the paper is inclusive wealth make better decisions for achieving sustainable development for South Asia. Accounting for natural capital strength also is useful for educating decision makers and assessing the relative importance of non-market benefits relative to market benefits.