Can countries bridge the gap in the quality of life? – Inheritance for Ukraine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/jbem.2025.23710Abstract
Considering that most countries exhibit substantial disparities between the rich and the poor, there is a demand for a fresh perspective on the dynamics of a country’s development and its potential for convergence. The article represents an attempt to use a comprehensive econometric framework to analyze long-term trends in people’s consumption levels across different countries of the world over the past 60 years. The obtained results indicate a paradoxical and strategically important trend: until 2008, all countries of the world demonstrated a steady growth of CPC, albeit at different rates. After 2008, there is a significant slowdown or complete absence of CPC growth in all countries. This trend indicates that the existing economic model has exhausted itself, and within its paradigm, it is impossible to stimulate new growth of CPC for the population. While some may view this as “reaching the point of well-being,” it is a point on the brink of an abyss. Regardless of political courses, the world is moving towards a new era and a new redistribution of world forces. This can explain the growth of conflicts, wars and tensions between countries. The results of the study have significant implications for understanding the sustainability and future of the world economy, as well as for the formulation of development policies and strategies at the global level.
Keywords:
well-being, regression models, world economic paradigm, consumption per capita (CPC), trend, GDP, Ukraine, warHow to Cite
Share
License
Copyright (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
Bacchini, F., Baldazzi, B., & Di Biagio, L. (2020). The evolution of composite indices of well-being: An application to Italy. Ecological Indicators, 117, Article 106603. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106603> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106603
Benczúr, P., Kvedaras, V., & Preziosi, N. (2023). Health-adjusted income: Complementing GDP to reflect the valuation of life expectancy (Technical Report No. JRC134152). Publications Office of the European Union. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/91140> https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/91140
Bloom, D. E., Fan, V. Y., Kufenko, V., Ogbuoji, O., Prettner, K., & Yamey, G. (2021). Going beyond GDP with a parsimonious indicator. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 19, 127–140. https://doi.org/10.1553/populationyearbook2021.res1.1> https://doi.org/10.1553/populationyearbook2021.res1.1
Bondy, A. S., Maggor, E., & Tassinari, A. (2024). Putting wage growth back on the table: Labour incorporation, political exchange, and wage-boosting policies in advanced peripheral economies. Competition & Change. https://doi.org/10.1177/10245294241226733> https://doi.org/10.1177/10245294241226733
Castellano, R., De Bernardo, G., & Punzo, G. (2024). Sustainable well-being and sustainable consumption and production: An efficiency analy-sis of sustainable development goal 12. Sustainability, 16(17), Article 7535. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177535> https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177535
Coscieme, L., Mortensen, L. F., Anderson, S., Ward, J., Donohue, I., & Sutton, P. C. (2020). Going beyond gross domestic product as an indicator to bring coherence to the sustainable development goals. Journal of Cleaner Production, 248, Article 119232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119232> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119232
Dasic, B., Devic, Z., Denic, N., Zlatkovic, D., Ilic, I. D., Cao, Y., Jermsittiparsert, K., & Le, H. V. (2020). Human development index in a context of human development: Review on the western Balkans countries. Brain and Behavior, 10(9), Article e01755. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.1755> https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.1755
Deaton, A., & Schreyer, P. (2022). GDP, wellbeing, and health: Thoughts on the 2017 round of the International Comparison Program. Review of Income and Wealth, 68(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12520> https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12520
Dwyer, L. (2023). Tourism development and sustainable well-being: A beyond GDP perspective. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 31(10), 2399–2416. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1825457> https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1825457
Eika, L., Mogstad, M., & Vestad, O. L. (2020). What can we learn about household consumption expenditure from data on income and assets? Journal of Public Economics, 189, Article 104163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104163> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104163
Felice, E. (2024). GDP and convergence in modern times. In C. Diebolt & Haupert, M. (Eds.), Handbook of cliometrics (pp. 827–857). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35583-7_5> https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35583-7_5
Fraumeni, B. M. (2022). Gross domestic product: Are other measures needed? IZA World of Labor. https://doi.org/10.15185/izawol.368.v2> https://doi.org/10.15185/izawol.368.v2
Galgóczi, B., & Pochet, P. (2022). Introduction. Welfare states confronted by the challenges of climate change: A short review of the issues and possible impacts. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 28(3), 307–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/10242589221132781> https://doi.org/10.1177/10242589221132781
Heide, M., Hauschild, M. Z., & Ryberg, M. (2023). Reflecting the importance of human needs fulfilment in absolute sustainability assessments: Development of a sharing principle. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 27(4), 1151–1164. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13405> https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13405
Hirsch, E., & Silverstone, R. (2003). The long term and the short term of domestic consumption. In Consuming technologies (pp. 206–222). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203401491-23> https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203401491-23
Hüttel, A., Balderjahn, I., & Hoffmann, S. (2020). Welfare beyond consumption: The benefits of having less. Ecological Economics, 176, Article 106719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106719> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106719
Jabeen, A., & Khan, S. A. (2022). Economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection: Assessing the existence of green growth in Pakistan. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 29(44), 66675–66688. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20467-9> https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20467-9
Jain, R. K., Cui, Z., & Domen, J. K. (2016). Environmental impacts of mining. In Impact of mining and mineral processing (pp. 53–157). Butter-worth-Heinemann. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-804040-9.00004-8> https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-804040-9.00004-8
Jakob, M., Lamb, W. F., Steckel, J. C., Flachsland, C., & Edenhofer, O. (2020). Understanding different perspectives on economic growth and climate policy. WIREs Climate Change, 11(6), Article e677. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.677> https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.677
Kalimeris, P., Bithas, K., Richardson, C., & Nijkamp, P. (2020). Hidden linkages between resources and economy: A “Beyond-GDP” approach using alternative welfare indicators. Ecological Economics, 169, Article 106508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106508> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106508
Kharlamova, G., Stavytskyy, A., & Zarotiadis, G. (2018). The impact of technological changes on income inequality: The EU states case study. Journal of International Studies, 11(2), 76–94. https://doi.org/10.14254/2071-8330.2018/11-2/6> https://doi.org/10.14254/2071-8330.2018/11-2/6
Kharlamova, G., Stavytskyy, A., Chernyak, O., Giedraitis, V. R., & Komendant, O. (2019). Economic modeling of the GDP gap in Ukraine and worldwide. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 17(2), 493–509. https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(2).2019.38> https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(2).2019.38
Kynčlová, P., Upadhyaya, S., & Nice, T. (2020). Composite index as a measure on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 9 (SDG-9) indus-try-related targets: The SDG-9 index. Applied Energy, 265, Article 114755. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.114755> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.114755
Macekura, S. J. (2020). The mismeasure of progress: Economic growth and its critics. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226736440.001.0001> https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226736440.001.0001
Nate, S., Bilan, Y., Cherevatskyi, D., Kharlamova, G., Lyakh, O., & Wosiak, A. (2021). The impact of energy consumption on the three pillars of sustainable development. Energies, 14(5), Article 1372. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14051372> https://doi.org/10.3390/en14051372
Oswald, Y., Owen, A., & Steinberger, J. K. (2020). Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories. Nature Energy, 5, 231–239. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0579-8> https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0579-8
Öztürk, E. G., Guimarães, P., & Silva, S. T. (2024). Building a composite index using the multi-objective approach: An application to the case of human development. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 91, Article 101756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2023.101756> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2023.101756
Piligrimienė, Ž., Žukauskaitė, A., Korzilius, H., Banytė, J., & Dovalienė, A. (2020). Internal and external determinants of consumer engagement in sustainable consumption. Sustainability, 12(4), Article 1349. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041349> https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041349
Popescu, A. (2022) Income inequality in the countries of the European Union. Scientific Papers. Series “Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development”, 22(3), 547–560. https://managementjournal.usamv.ro/index.php/scientific-papers/2977-income-inequality-in-the-countries-of-the-european-union> https://managementjournal.usamv.ro/index.php/scientific-papers/2977-income-inequality-in-the-countries-of-the-european-union
Qiu, D., & Wang, Y. (2023). Gross Domestic Products (GDP) is not a proper indicator of measurement and economic power comparison for emerging economies: A judgement from international distributions of net factor income from abroad. Journal of Economic Statistics, 1(1), 1–44. https://doi.org/10.58567/jes01010001> https://doi.org/10.58567/jes01010001
Rabe, C., & Waddle, A. (2020). The evolution of purchasing power parity. Journal of International Money and Finance, 109, Article 102237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2020.102237> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2020.102237
Ray, R., & Singh, P. (2021). Regionally disaggregated estimates of global income inequality with evidence on sensitivity to purchasing power parity. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 26(2), 252–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/13547860.2021.1926120> https://doi.org/10.1080/13547860.2021.1926120
Sajith, G. G., & Malathi, K. (2020). Applicability of human development index for measuring economic well-being: a study on GDP and HDI indicators from Indian context. The Indian Economic Journal, 68(4), 554–571. https://doi.org/10.1177/0019466221998620> https://doi.org/10.1177/0019466221998620
Salyga, J. (2023). Democratic facades, authoritarian penchants: post-communist monetary restructuring in the Baltic states. Globalizations, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2023.2236881> https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2023.2236881
Santos, J. V., & Cylus, J. (2024). The value of healthy ageing: Estimating the economic value of health using time use data. Social Science & Medicine, 340, Article 116451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116451> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116451
Shrotryia, V. K., & Singh, S. V. P. (2020). Measuring progress beyond GDP: A theoretical perspective. Emerging Economy Studies, 6(2), 143–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/2394901520983784> https://doi.org/10.1177/2394901520983784
Sivalingam, V., Liu, H., Selvam, B., Kai, G., Kumar, P. G., Gupta, M. K., Korkmaz, P. G., & Sun, J. (2024). Towards sustainability assessment, energy consumption, and carbon emissions in cryogenic drilling of Alloy 20: A new approach towards sustainable future and challenges. The In-ternational Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 131, 1151–1165. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-024-13144-3> https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-024-13144-3
Slesnick, D. T. (2020). GDP and social welfare: An assessment using regional data. In Measuring economic growth and productivity (pp. 481–508). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817596-5.00021-4> https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817596-5.00021-4
Smith, J. (2021, August 23–27). Accounting for non-market household production ‘Beyond GDP’: 20th century Trends in mother’s milk pro-duction. In Proceedings of the 36th IARIW Virtual General Conference. Oslo, Norway. https://iariw.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Smith_paper.pdf> https://iariw.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Smith_paper.pdf
Stavytskyy, A. V., & Kozub, M. B. (2020). Modeling of economic convergence processes in eastern Europe countries. Ekonomika, 99(2), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.15388/Ekon.2020.2.1> https://doi.org/10.15388/Ekon.2020.2.1
Stavytskyy, A., Kharlamova, G., Giedraitis, V. R., Osetskyi, V., & Kulish, V. (2020). Can key interest rates decrease output gaps? Investment Man-agement and Financial Innovations, 17(3), 205–218. https://doi.org/10.21511/imfi.17(3).2020.16> https://doi.org/10.21511/imfi.17(3).2020.16
Swan, P. L. (2023). Why ABS volume GDP figures can be misleading. In Trevor Winchester Swan, Vol. 2. Contributions to Economic theory and policy (pp. 129–138). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23807-9_14> https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23807-9_14
Torvik, R. (2001). Learning by doing and the Dutch disease. European Economic Review, 45(2), 285–306. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0014-2921(99)00071-9> https://doi.org/10.1016/S0014-2921(99)00071-9
van den Bergh, J. C. J. M. (2022). A procedure for globally institutionalizing a ‘beyond-GDP’metric. Ecological Economics, 192, Article 107257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107257> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107257
Weimin, Z., & Zubair Chishti, M. (2021). Toward sustainable development: Assessing the effects of commercial policies on consumption and production-based carbon emissions in developing economies. SAGE Open, 11(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211061580> https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211061580
World Bank. (n.d.). Households and NPISHs Final consumption expenditure per capita (constant 2015 US$). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.PRVT.PC.KD> https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.PRVT.PC.KD
Zhao, X., & Sun, Z. (2020). The effect of satisfaction with environmental performance on subjective well-being in China: GDP as a moderating factor. Sustainability, 12(5), Article 1745. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051745> https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051745
View article in other formats
CrossMark check
Published
Issue
Section
Copyright
Copyright (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.