Definition
The three main, and sometimes conflicting, definitions of Standard of Living are (1) the utility of life (Pigou 1952); (2) economic provision or “opulence,” which measures the amount and quality of commodities that the individual is free to use (Deutsch and Silber 1987); and (3) a type of freedom, i.e., to be free to do something, the capability to live well for a certain socioeconomic class in a certain geographic area (Sen 1984). Among these, the last one is the most complete and complex definition; however, in practice, governments and institutions tend to use the second approach since it is easier to obtain data for this one.
Introduction
Unlimited growth, as a main goal of a country, has been criticized, especially during the last 10 years (Stiglitz et al. 2008; Heinrichs 2013; Barreiro-Gen 2018), since it may not increase people’s well-being (Juknys et al. 2018). Equally, the economic assumption that a person who consumes more is always better off than a person who...
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Barreiro-Gen, M. (2019). Discussing Approaches to Standard of Living. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Decent Work and Economic Growth. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71058-7_22-1
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