Measures of social progress

Since 2004 the OECD has been running a programme on new measures of social progress. In 2009 it launched Wikiprogress bringing together data and analysis on progress and President Sarkozy commissioned Joseph Stiglitz to chair an inquiry into new measures of GDP. The commission recommended far-reaching changes, including paying attention to non-paid work, rethinking the contribution of finance to prosperity and properly accounting for environmental impacts. All of these changing measures point to some radically different ways of organising public policy.