Trends in Economic Well-being in Canada in the 1990s

In this chapter, Lars Osberg and Andrew Sharpe provide an overview of trends in a number of dimensions of economic well-being (consumption flows, stocks of wealth, income equality, and economic security) from the lens of the Index of Economic Well-being, a new composite measure of economic well-being developed by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards. Osberg and Sharpe point out that the determinants of the nearly 20 variables that make up the Index are complex. After registering increases in the 1970s and 1980s, the Index declined in absolute terms in the 1990s. Overall, they conclude that there has been a direct link between the deterioration of economic performance in this country in the 1990s and the overall state of economic well-being.