Annual Economic Report: Do We Now Measure Prosperity in Germany anew?

In its recently published Annual Economic Report, the German government is making a new attempt to no longer measure prosperity solely in terms of Gross Domestic Product. How is that supposed to work? And is Germany catching up with the countries that have been leading the way for years? How relevant will the new concept be for policymakers in practice?

Philipp Steinberg has been working for some time to advance the idea of an expanded measure of well-being and was instrumental in adding a chapter on alternative indicators to the Annual Economic Report. Nicola Brandt has been working on the prosperity issue at the OECD for a long time. For the Forum, she and her colleague Lara Fleischer wrote a study in which the two experts compare internationally where governments are already working on new prosperity indicators and reports and what lessons can be learned from them – also for Germany. Maja Göpel has long called for a change in the way wealth is measured as a necessary building block of a sustainable transformation and, as part of a group of prominent business leaders and professors, has helped to develop a “Compass for Germany” to this end.