National Wealth

What is Missing, Why it Matters

Edited by Kirk Hamilton and Cameron Hepburn

Offers clear and concise definitions of "national wealth" and its constituent parts
Written by expert contributors
Structured on a sound theoretical foundation whilst also offering empirical backing throughout
Delves into the implications of national wealth for current-day policymaking

National Wealth

What is Missing, Why it Matters

Edited by Kirk Hamilton and Cameron Hepburn

Description

Why are some nations wealthy and others poor? How did the wealthy nations become rich? What are the components of wealth? How should nations manage their wealth for the future? These are among the most important questions in economics. They are also impossible to answer without defining wealth, and understanding how it can be created, destroyed, stored, and managed.

National Wealth: What is Missing, Why it Matters assembles a collection of high-quality contributions to define the key concepts and address the economic and policy issues around national wealth. It considers insights from economic history, addresses the impacts of the changes to national accounting, and teases out the policy implications for both rich and poor countries and the institutions within them.

Using expert analysis and theory backed by empirical work, this book evaluates the progress that has been made in measuring national wealth, as well as the recent developments in theory and practice which tell us that the change in real wealth (net saving) is an essential indicator of economic progress. Net national saving, measured comprehensively and adjusted to reflect the investment in and the depreciation of the full range of assets measured in national wealth, is an indicator of the change in future wellbeing. Governments can use this measure to answer a fundamental question: How much does the stream of future wellbeing of the population rise or fall as a result of policy actions today?

The book is organized into four parts. Part one provides the political context and defines the key concepts. Part two examines the history of wealth creation and destruction. Part three provides a more detailed analysis of the individual components of wealth, and finally, part four examines the lessons for managing wealth for sustainable national prosperity.

National Wealth

What is Missing, Why it Matters

Edited by Kirk Hamilton and Cameron Hepburn

Part One: Concepts
1. Introduction, Kirk Hamilton and Cameron Hepburn
2. The Political Economy of National Statistics, Diane Coyle
3. A Tight Connection Among Wealth, Income, Sustainability and Accounting in an Ultra-Simplified Setting, Martin L. Weitzman
4. Wealth and Happiness, Claudia Senik
Part Two: History of Wealth Creation and Destruction
5. A Sustainable Century: Genuine Savings in Developing and Developed Countries, 1900-2000, Matthias Blum, Cristian Ducoing, Eoin McLaughlin
6. Household Wealth Trends in the US, 1983 to 2010, Edward N. Wolff
7. Historical Wealth Accounts for Britain: Progress and Puzzles in Measuring the Sustainability of Economic Growth, Eoin McLaughlin, Nick Hanley, David Greasley, Jan Kunnas, Les Oxley, and Paul Warde
8. Wealth, Top Incomes, and Inequality, Frank Cowell, Brian Nolan, Javier Olivera, and Philippe Van Kerm
9. Wealth Creation and the Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato
Part Three: Components of Wealth
10. Recording Environmental Assets in the National Accounts, Carl Obst and Michael Vardon
11. Human Capital, Tangible Wealth, and the Intangible Capital Residual, Kirk Hamilton and Gang Liu
12. Social Capital, Trust, and Well-being in the Evaluation of Wealth, Kirk Hamilton, John F. Helliwell, and Michael Woolcock
13. Infrastructure: Political Economy of Wealth Creation, Michael Klein
14. Nodes of Capital: Cities, Wealth, and the Era of Urbanization, Dimitri Zenghelis
Part Four: Wealth and Sustainability
15. Wealth and Sustainability, Kirk Hamilton and John Hartwick
16. Sustainable Economic Growth and the Role of Natural Capital, Dieter Helm
17. Finance, Wealth, Technological Innovation, and Regulation, Colin Mayer
18. The Economics of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Rolando Ossowski and Havard Halland
19. Sustainable Management of Natural Resource Wealth, Rick van der Ploeg
Part Five: Conclusion
20. Conclusion, Kirk Hamilton and Cameron Hepburn

National Wealth

What is Missing, Why it Matters

Edited by Kirk Hamilton and Cameron Hepburn

Author Information

Kirk Hamilton is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Emeritus Lead Economist in the Development Research Group of The World Bank. He is co-author of The Changing Wealth of Nations (World Bank 2011) and World Development Report 2010 Development and Climate Change. He is principal author of Where is the Wealth of Nations? (World Bank 2006) and led research on the links between poverty and environment, 'greening' the national accounts, and the economics of climate change. He also served as Assistant Director of National Accounts for the government of Canada, where his responsibilities included developing an environmental national accounting program.

Cameron Hepburn is the Director of the Economics of Sustainability Programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Environmental Economics at the Smith School and a Fellow at New College, Oxford. He is also Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science and serves as Managing Editor of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. He has published several dozen peer-reviewed papers and is co-author with Dieter Helm of The Economics and Politics of Climate Change (OUP) and Nature in the Balance: the Economics of Biodiversity (OUP). He frequently advises companies, governments and international organizations on energy, resources and environmental strategy.

Contributors:

Diane Coyle- University of Manchester
Matthias Blum- Queen's University Management School, Queen's University Belfast
Frank Cowell- London School of Economics
Cristián Ducoing- Department of Geography and Economic History, Umeå Universitet
David Greasley- University of Edinburgh
Håvard Halland- World Bank Group
Kirk Hamilton- London School of Economics and Political Science
Nick Hanley- University of Stirling
John Hartwick- Queen's University
John F. Helliwell- University of British Columbia
Dieter Helm- University of Oxford
Cameron Hepburn- University of Oxford
Michael Klein- Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Jan Kunnas- KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
Gang Liu- Statistics Norway
Colin Mayer- Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Mariana Mazzucato- Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
Eoin McLaughlin- Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews
Brian Nolan- University of Oxford
Carl Obst- Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne; Institute for the Development of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Javier Olivera- Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research, KU Leuven, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Rolando Ossowski- International Monetary Fund's Fiscal Affairs Department
Les Oxley- University of Waikato
Rick van der Ploeg- University of Oxford
Philippe Van Kerm- Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research
Michael Vardon- Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University,
Paul Warde- University of East Anglia
Martin L. Weitzman- Harvard University
Edward N.Wolff- New York University
Michael Woolcock- World Bank
Claudia Senik- Paris School of Economics
Dimitri Zenghelis- London School of Economics