Economic Shocks, Wealth, and Welfare

Economic shocks, wealth and welfare

The immediate effects of the Asian crisis on the well-being of Indonesians are examined using the Indonesia Family Life Survey, an on-going longitudinal household survey. There is tremendous diversity in the effect of the shock: for some households, it was devastating; for others it brought new opportunities. A wide array of mechanisms were adopted in response to the crisis. Households combined...

Economic shocks, wealth and welfare: Evidence from the Indonesia Family Life Survey

Sustaining Economic Welfare: Estimating Changes in Per Capita Wealth

'Genuine' saving values the total change in economic assets and, as such, provides an indicator of whether an economy is on a sustainable path. New estimates of genuine saving from the World Bank broaden the usual national accounts definitions of assets to include human capital, minerals, energy, forest resources and the stock of atmospheric CO2. The paper explores the issue of measuring change...

Welfare, Wealth and Sustainability

Growing concerns over climate change and the potential for large damages due to non-linear processes underscore the need for meaningful sustainability assessment of an economy. Economists have developed rigorous approaches to conceptualizing sustainability based on the paradigm of weak sustainability, which assumes infinite substitution between manufactured and natural capital stocks. In contra...

Wealth Shocks and Macroeconomic Dynamics

The effect of wealth on consumption is an issue of longstanding interest to economists. Analysts believe that fluctuations in household wealth have driven major swings in economic activity. This paper considers so-called wealth effects—the impact of changes in wealth on household consumption and the overall macroeconomy. There is an extensive existing literature on wealth effects, but there are...