Related Content

The three-day conference Economics for a Better World has come to an end. In the future, we should invite more non-economists, like environmentalists and behavioural and social scientists.

Economists seem to find it difficult to accept different schools of economic thought. But pluralism in economic thinking is the solution to the complexity of the real world that surrounds us.

The debate on wellbeing should not only inform but also be useful for policy-makers. Read the third article in this series from the OECD conference.

This is the first blog post in a series from the OECD conference Economics for a Better World. Happiness versus wellbeing, are we talking about the same thing?

Collective buying reduces costs, but also makes money go further. Britain’s up2us programme has experience with it.

African economic transformation should be inclusive, but how can this be achieved? Experts discussed this at the launch of the preview of the 2013 African Transformation Report.

The economic crisis is being handled in a way that benefits a small and wealthy group of technocratic European politicians, investors and entrepreneurs. It therefore appears to serve as an instrument to cut down on democracy and to increase inequa…

There is a need for new values for wealth and national economic growth figures. GNP and GNI are outdated.

Was the welcome smell of oven-fresh apple pie meant to soften the controversial question on the table: is it time for INGOs to retire?

Today was the start of the final two weeks of the Bellagio Initiative. Forty people from across the world have been invited to the beautiful Lake Como in northern Italy to talk about how we can act more strategically towards achieving hu…

Is water a commodity or a public good? Who can assume the right to open or close the water tap? This blog will focus on the public to public partnerships for water utilities.

In the framework of the Bellagio Initiative, The Broker hosted a lively online debate on human wellbeing and inclusive economics in the 21st century. Our contributors agree that economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) generally…

According to Henk Molenaar, we are in need of a single, powerful concept to rival growth as development paradigm.

We are indeed in need of a new development paradigm, Henk Molenaar argues. Compared to the simplicity and intuitive clarity of the concept of growth, the ever more sophisticated indices we are developing to measure wellbeing are not going to do th…

"At this stage, we are getting what we measure: outputs not outcomes, GDP not wellbeing", Russell Lewis argues.

Patricia Almeida Ashley advocates for a participative policy making approach that embraces complexity thinking: from the mechanical view of "dots" towards the quantum physics view of  "waves"

According to Claudio Shuftan, the changes needed in the current economic climate are so drastic that mega philanthropies and their sponsors will never accept them.

Ethics have become a non-market good, argues Katherine Zobre, but we can reclaim it. 

The majority of capacity building still focuses on technical skills rather than the fundamental ‘soft skills’ that are necessary to meaningfully implement training, says Russell Lewis. 

In Africa, economic growth and GDP are still of the utmost importance and are a necessary condition for real wellbeing, argues Dirk Bol. 

Don’t try to change the aid industry, Lucia Nass argues: "Focus on mindsets and relationships instead".

We may need a new development model, one that puts greater emphasis on culture and social exclusion, Tanja Van de Linde argues.

New development models and even economic theories are redundant, argues Wieck Wildeboer: "As a donor community, we may practice some modesty". 

Probably you already have noticed that The Broker started a project called the “Bellagio Initiative: living well in the 21st century”. This is mainly an online debate on a series of questions related to the promotion of human wellbeing in general,…

The fundamental problem of economists is their lack of accountability, says co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Dean Baker.

Look here for all the events planned within the framework of the Bellagio Initiative and some interesting links for more information.

According to Charles Seaford, Head of the Centre for Well-being, growth should not be the primary objective of economic policy.

The recent and ongoing global financial crisis has shaken the confidence of many people in the trajectory and organization of global development. The effects of the 2008 crisis were experienced around the globe and its adverse impacts on human wel…

The Broker is proud to have contributed to the Bellagio Initiative by hosting a lively online debate about human wellbeing and inclusive economics. 

Nancy Peluso’s exciting and much discussed keynote speech drew on the metaphor of the ‘Beauty and the Beast’. Using the humorous but thought-provoking imagery of the story, Peluso highlighted the variety of ways in which the relationship between n…

Editor Evert-jan Quak comments and reflects on new research, publications, blog posts, conferences and current affairs in the field of inclusive and sustainable economy.

Social change

Het AIV-advies over de ‘post-2015’ agenda voor mondiale ontwikkeling zet een andere toon dan eerdere, invloedrijke rapporten van de WRR. Daarmee creëert het een basis voor een interessant debat tussen een aantal verschillende paradigma’s over ontw…

Does Ecological Economics have the ability to cope with short term crises of the capitalist economy, if we are primarily concerned with long-term cumulative phenomena, coevolutionary responses both by nature and institutions?A key area for our wor…

The ISEE 2010 Tuesday sessions by Tim Jackson and Juliet Schor hit on the heart of the economic model (accumulation, growth and consumerism) by proposing innovative visions of how to reform capitalism towards human well-being.Before the talk start…

Participants of the Third International Conference on Eco-Efficiency, held in Egmond aan de Zee, The Netherlands, June 9-11, 2010, discussed how to ensure that 8 billion people in developed and (former) developing countries can have a good life by…

Since 1972, economists and others have tried to supplant GDP-driven indicators with measures that take human well-being into account. But how easy is that, and how close are we?

We face a number of highly challenging tendencies which require fundamental new approaches to get us on the track of a decent global society. First, the industrial transformation of societies has taken off globally. It is not a matter if but only…

David Barkin, Professor of Economics at the Xochimilco Campus of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in México City, talks with Louise Stoddard about the importance of collective action for well being….

Luis Rico Garcia–Amado from Ecologistas en Acción discusses the results of his joint research in the Bolivian Amazon which measured what we can learn from Indigenous people about how the consumption of market goods relates to well being….

I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this morning’s poster tour, perhaps an artistic interpretation of research or some beautiful photography of eco systems. After some deliberation I settled on the ‘Degrowth beyond Europe and the West’ tour, whi…

Jeroen van den Bergh of ICTA/UAB talks to Louise Stoddard at the 2nd Conference on Economic Degrowth, Barcelona, March 2010.

Only a few hours till the conference begins. I´ve been looking forward to this degrowth conference for months, though not without some trepidation. I cannot embrace the term degrowth enthusiastically—it sounds about as intuitively appealing as und…

Could de-growth reduce poverty and avoid climate change? A scientific study coordinated by researchers of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona has recently argued that “The solution both t…

Frans Bieckmann is the Editor in Chief of The BrokerLooking back on, and having briefly chewed over a long day of interesting talks and debates at the High Level Policy Forum in Brussels, I will share with you some of the threads and trends t…

In this contribution we directly address the four queries posed for the debate. To do so we need to note at the outset that from a development perspective it can easily be argued that the adoption of the MDGs by the world community in September 20…

Sumner in his challenging paper “Beyond 2015”, encourages us to rethink the development policy and reconsider the need, nature and dimensions of MDG’s from the real expectations of poor people instead of donors’ interest. The author points out the…

Editor in Chief Frans Bieckmann will update an editor’s blog reflecting on the thought processes behind production of The Broker and highlighting interesting, useful and unusual information that he comes across day to day

Leading aid models focus on economic growth and poverty reduction. The well-being approach aims for more comprehensive change. A recent study designed tools for implementing this new concept.