University NewsUniversity News
Alicante, 27th June 2012
Achieving Happiness is the maximum that advocates the Welfare State. However, advocates of ecological economics assert that the gross domestic product (GDP) is deficient as a measure of social welfare, that is, of happiness. So are social inequalities sustainable in the long term? This is one of the issues on which they want attention and that will be discussed by researchers and experts involved in the "International Seminar on Ecological Economic and Social Development: XXI Century Challenges for an equitable and sustainable system".
Over 28 and 29 June 2012, ecological economics and social development will focus the discussion of the group of experts, both Spanish and Turkish, Belgian and Portuguese, researchers in complementary areas who will gather together at the UA, both to deal with conceptual aspects and to find relevant indicators for measuring the sustainability of a system.
Ecological economics is a different way to raise the economic, social and labour relationships, reaching the long term, so that is environmentally sustainable. So this is a very important social dimension to which no attention is being paid, as in the field of social inequalities.
Economic and social policies are the focus for the first day of the Seminary, day in which researchers will develop a definition of the concepts involved and will clarify what kind of actions or guidelines should be taken in politics.
The reality is that, to gauge whether a government has made progress in the right direction of its goals, it is vital to know what is being measured. Researchers have questioned whether they own the right tools to do so. For those defending this way of understanding economy, the GDP is deficient as a measure of social welfare. Experts will discuss about the alternative measures that fit on the second day.
The Seminar, organized by IUDESP with the collaboration of the UA Departments of Sociology II and Quantitative Methods and Economic Theory, to be held on 28 and 29 June 2012, at the Vicens Vives Lecture Room (Faculty Economics and Business) .
Programme
