Genuine Saving as a Sustainability Indicator

Abstract

Growth theory provides the intellectual underpinning for expanded national accounting and, through the measure of genuine saving, an indicator of when economies are on an unsustainable development path. This theory points in useful directions for countries concerned with sustainable development. The genuine savings analysis raises an important set of policy questions that goes beyond the traditional concern with the macroeconomic and microeconomic determinants of savings efforts. The questions of rent capture, public investments of resource revenues, resource tenure policies, and the social costs of pollution emissions are equally germane in determining the overall level of saving, although it is clear that monetary and fiscal policy remain the big levers. This analysis also provides a practical way for natural resource and environmental issues to be discussed in the language that ministries of Finance understand. This may prove to be an important advantage as many resource-dependent economies struggle to achieve their development goals.