The use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the primary measure of economic progress has arguably led to unintended consequences of environmental degradation and socially skewed outcomes. The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) was designed to reveal the trade offs associated with conventional economic growth and to assess the broader impact of economic benefits and costs on sustainable human welfare. Although originally designed for use at the national scale, an interest has developed in the United States in a state-level uptake of the GPI to inform and guide policy. However, questions exist about the quality and legitimacy of the GPI as a composite indicator. These questions include concerns about the underlying assumptions, the monetary weights and variables used, statistical rigor, magnitude of data collection required, and lack of a transparent governance mechanism for the metric. This study aims to address these issues and explore the GPI through a design-thinking lens as both a design artifact and intervention. The leading paper in this dissertation offers the first GPI accounting for all 50 U.S. states. State GPI results are introduced and compared to Gross State Product (GSP). Then an analysis of the components to GPI reveals which drive the differences in outcomes, including examining the sustainability aspects of the state-level results. The second paper investigates the quality of the GPI as a composite indicator by testing its sensitivity to numerical assumptions and relative magnitudes of components, with particular attention to the possible unintended policy consequences of the design. The third paper seeks to answer the question of both efficiency (data parsimony) and effectiveness (comparatively to other indicators) by analysis of correlations between GPI components and with other state-level indicators such as the Gallup Well-Being Indicator, Ecological Footprint, and UN Human Development Index. To garner insight about possible GPI improvements, goals, and governance gaps in the informal U.S GPI network, the final paper dives into processes, outputs, and outcomes from the community of practice as revealed through a facilitated U.S. GPI workshop.

Diplomová práce se zabývá tématem alternativních ukazatelů vývoje hospodářství, které berou v úvahu úroveň štěstí ve společnosti. Zkoumá, za jakých historických souvislostí v první polovině 20. století vznikal ukazatel HDP a na co tehdy reagoval a snaží se nastínit, co se od té doby změnilo. Cílem je odpovědět na otázky, zda má smysl měřit indexy na základě štěstí a zda již dozrála doba na rozšíření povědomí o nich.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the implementation of quantitative easing (QE) and quantitative tightening (QT) in the United States has detracted from the integrity of the country’s macroeconomic environment. In other words, does QE impact macroeconomic stability? Then, evaluate implications and externalities of stability as they relate to sustainability efforts. QE and QT are relatively new phenomena, understanding their effects and implications for the greater economy is a worthwhile endeavor, not least because QE is a current practice of so many central banks internationally. This study has two parallel investigations; first, a time series analysis conducted with a VAR model investigating the relationship of QE/QT usage by the Federal Reserve (Fed) on the macroeconomic stability of the United States. The data used in this study includes 242 monthly observations spanning January 2003 - February 2023. The second, is an OLS regression analysis evaluating whether macroeconomic stability is potentially correlated with sustainability efforts. For this study, 23 annual observations spanning 1995 – 2017 were used. Due in part to the general unavailability of genuine progress indicator (GPI) data. Based on the analysis conducted using a VAR model at lag t-4, QE has a positive relationship with Producer Price Index (PPI) and Federal Funds Rate (FFR). This is in accord with previous empirical literature on the subject. However, the second path of discovery failed to yield significant results with regard to the link between macroeconomic stability and sustainability efforts. Mention of this study’s limitations as well as avenues for future research can be found in the conclusion of this study.