Received date: 2005-03-22
Revised date: 2005-07-06
Online published: 2005-11-25
Supported by
Key project of National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40235053; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40201019; the Assessment of Impact and Adaptation of Climate Change (AIACC) Project, No.AS25
Enhancing and sustaining the happiness life or the quality of life (QOL) is a primary and ultimate goal of national policy. First, the evolvement tendency and characteristic of national accounting system have been identified. The fundamental characteristic of GDP, green accounting and ISEW is that these accounting systems are still based on measuring how much is being consumed, with the assumption that more consumption leads to more welfare. Happiness or quality of life as a completely different approach shall be taken to look directly at actual well-being achieved, which will separate the means (consumption) from the ends (happiness or QOL) without assuming one is correlated with the other. Secondly, the theoretical implications of human development have been discussed and three constraints have been identified as environmental constraint, equality and efficiency. Based on brief introduction of environmental and social constraints faced by China's human development, we analysed the relationship between economic growth and environmental pressure from the view of consumption and production in China. The overall findings don't support the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis, and our theoretical analysis can not support the claim that technological progress cannot reconcile the conflict between economic growth and environmental conservation. China should replace much of their faith in technological progress with the pursuit of other forms of cultural progress. Thirdly, The concept of happiness or QOL and its measurement approach have been introduced. If improving gross national happiness (GNH) is indeed the goal of social policies and programs, it follows that appropriate national aggregate accounting system should attempt to measure the extent to which policies actually improve GNH. GNH can be the measurement components of an overall plan to maximize social well-being. The first step in the process would be to identify the constitutive components of a preferred society in the greatest detail possible through a stakeholder dialogue process. This information would be used to identify the relevant instrumental components. The second step would be to identify the metrics of GNH's instrumental components. Direct measurement, indirect measurement and social choice have been recommended as alternative instruments to resolve the complex measurement. A specific action plan for maximizing GNH can be developed based on the above identifying process. Once these are established, the following four guidelines such as focusing on poor people, developing cyclic economy, considering cultural development and harmonizing the equality and efficiency may be useful in developing a successful plan.
CHENG Guodong, XU Zhongmin, XU Jinxiang . Vision of Integrated Happiness Accounting System in China[J]. Acta Geographica Sinica, 2005 , 60(6) : 883 -893 . DOI: 10.11821/xb200506001
[1] Pan Xi. Xie Zhenghua, the Director General of State Environment Protection Administration of China, stated that the value of ecological destruction has been up to 15% of GDP. Sciencetimes, 2005-04-29.
[潘希. 国家环保总局局长谢振华痛陈环境与发展之间的矛盾: 生态破坏一年"吃掉"15%的GDP. 科学时报, 2005-4-29.]
[2] 2003年中国环境保护状况公报. http://www.cepi.com.cn/data/data-affiche-communique.jsp.
[3] WDH, World Database of Happiness, Continuous register of research on subjective appreciation of life, version 2005, 2005. Erasmus University Rotterdam. Http://www.eur.nl/fsw/research/happiness.
[4] Nordhaus W D, Tobin J. Is growth obsolete? In: Economic Growth, Fifth Anniversary Colloquium V (National Bureau of Economic Research). 1972, 509-532. http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cp/p03b/p0398a.pdf
[5] Daily H E, Cobb J B. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.
[6] Henderson H, Lickerman J, Flynn P. Calvert-Henderson quality of life indicators. America, Maryland: Calvert Group, Ltd. 2000.
[7] Max-Neef M. Development and human needs. In: Ekins P, Max-neef M(eds.), Real-life Economics: Understanding Wealth Creation. London Routledge, 1992. 97-213.
[8] Priesner S. Gross national happiness-Bhutan vision of development and its challenges. http://www.bhutanstudies.org.bt/publications/gnh/GNH_Ch3_Priesner.pdf.
[9] Veenhoven R. Happy life years: a measure of gross national happiness. In: Ura K, Galay K (eds.), Gross National Happiness and Development, Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Operationalization of Gross National Happiness. Thimphu, Bhutan, 2004. 322-356.
[10] Sun Xiyou (ed.). Introduction to Social Economic Development for Happiness. Beijing: China Finance Press, 2005.
[孙希有 著. 面向幸福的经济社会发展导论. 北京: 中国金融出版社, 2005.]
[11] Chen Huixiong. Happiness Principal: With an Analysis of Human Economic Behavior. Beijing: Economic Science Press, 2003.
[陈惠雄 著. 快乐原则: 人类经济行为分析. 北京: 经济科学出版社, 2003.]
[12] Costanza R, Jorgensen S E. Understanding and Solving Environmental Problems in the 21st Century: Toward a New, Integrated Hard Problem Science. Netherlands, Amersterdam: Elesiver, 2002.
[徐中民, 张志强, 张齐兵 译. 理解和解决21世纪的环境问题: 面向一个集成的硬问题科学. 郑州: 黄河水利出版社, 2004.]
[13] Coleman D A. Ecology Politics: Building a Green Society. America: Harper Collins Publishers, 1998.
[梅俊杰 译. 生态政治: 建设一个绿色社会. 上海: 上海译文出版社, 2002.]
[14] Rawls J. A Theory of Justice (5th edn.). Masschusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.
[15] Pan Jiahua. A conceptual framework for understanding human development potential: with empirical analysis of global demand for carbon emissions. Social Sciences in China, 2002, (6): 15-25.
[潘家华. 人文发展分析的概念架构与经验数据: 以碳排放空间的需求为例. 中国社会科学, 2002, (6): 15-25.]
[16] Todaro M P, Smith S C. Economic Development (8th edn). New York: Addison Wesley, 2003.
[17] Xu Zhongmin, Cheng Guodong, Qiu Guoyu. ImPACTS identity of sustainability assessment. Acta Geographica Sinica, 2005, 60(2): 198-298.
[徐中民, 程国栋, 邱国玉. 可持续性评价的新等式: ImPACTS. 地理学报, 2005, 60(2): 198-298.]
[18] Daly H E, Farley J. Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications. Washington: Island Press, 2004.
[19] Xu Zhongmin, Cheng Guodong. Effects of population and affluence on environment in China. Journal of Galciology and Geocryology, 2005, 27(5): 721-728.
[徐中民, 程国栋. 中国人口和富裕对环境的影响. 冰川冻土, 2005, 27(5): 767-773.]
[20] Brown L R. Learning from China: why the western economic model will not work for the world. Eco-Economy Update, March 9, 2005.
[21] Zhao Mei. Suicide rate in China. Journal of Clinic Psychological Medicine, 2002, 12(3): 161-163.
[赵梅. 中国自杀率研究. 临床精神医学杂志, 2002, 12(3): 161-163.]
[22] Ehrlich P R, Holdrens J P. The impact of population growth. Science, 1971, 171: 1212-1217.
[23] Rothman D S. Environmental Kuznets Curves--real progress or passing the buck? a case for consumption-based approaches. Ecological Economics, 1998, 25: 177-194.
[24] de Bruyn S M, van den Bergh J M, Opschoor J B. Economics growth and emissions: reconsidering the empirical basis of environmental Kuznets curves. Ecological Economics, 1998, 25(2): 161-175.
[25] Wils A. End-use or extraction efficiency in antural resources utilitization: which is better? System Dynamics Review, 1998, 14: 163-188.
[26] Czech B. Technological progress and biodiversity conservation: a dollar spent, a dollar burned. Conservation Biology, 2003, 17(5): 1455-1457.
[27] Hawken P. The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. America: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.
[夏善晨, 余继英, 方堏 译. 商业生态学: 可持续发展的宣言. 上海: 上海译文出版社, 2001.]
[28] Veenhoven R. The four qualities of life: ordering concepts and measures of the good life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 2000, 1: 1-39.
[29] Dixon F. Improving unsustainable western economic systems. In Ura K, Galay K (eds.), Gross National Happiness and Development, Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Operationalization of Gross National Happiness. Thimphu, Bhutan, 2004. 105-121.
[30] Norerg-hodge H, Corelick S. Towards an economics of happiness. In Ura K, Galay K (eds.), Gross National Happiness and Development, Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Operationalization of Gross National Happiness. Thimphu, Bhutan, 2004. 74-104.
[31] Tideman S G. Gross national happiness: towards a new paradigm in economics. In Ura K, Galay K (eds.), Gross National Happiness and Development, Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Operationalization of Gross National Happiness. Thimphu, Bhutan, 2004. 229-252.
[32] Sen A. Inequality Reexamined. America: Harvard University Press, 1995.
[33] Schultz T W. The Economics of Being Poor. Masschusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1993.
/
| 〈 |
|
〉 |