Economic Growth or Harmonious Socio-Economic Development? Part I. Theoretical and Methodological View

Abstract

At the turn of the millennium, a change in the priorities of socio-economic development of territories, countries and regions has become clearly visible. The goals of increasing production volumes and increasing monetary wealth are giving way to new ones associated with the preservation of the natural environment, overcoming poverty and social inequality, human development and the desire to innovate. The change in the growth paradigm raises the question of the adequacy of traditional statistical approaches to the measurement and evaluation of the results of socio-economic development, has put forward the task of developing and implementing new, more appropriate to modern conditions, indicators and methods of evaluation. The paper provides a brief analysis of the prevailing ideas to reform the traditional methods of measuring and evaluating the results of socio-economic development of territories and proposes an approach based on the combined consideration of the factors of economic welfare, sustainability, inclusiveness and innovativeness. These factors are considered as the most important characteristics of economic growth and as the components of harmonious socio-economic development, the results of which are proposed to be assessed by means of a specially constructed composite index.