To measure the strength of a wellbeing economy, governments should adopt the notion of mental wealth, which goes beyond the monetised value of goods and services. Jo-An Occhipinti is the global champion of this concept. She is an epidemiologist and systems scientist, focused on improving the health and wellbeing of populations through systems modelling research. Jo-An is co-director of the Mental Wealth Initiative and head of systems modelling, simulation and data science at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney.

This episode of NeuroCentury comes from Sydney, where Paweł Świeboda discusses with Jo-An Occhipinti how to recognise the value of people’s contributions to the informal economy. It is the latter, or “social production”, that strengthens the social fabric and wellbeing of communities and nations. GDP, combined with social production, produces the Mental Wealth of nations. “In essence, Mental Wealth is a macroeconomic measure of the strength of a Wellbeing Economy”, Jo-An says.

If economic structures and policies are optimised only for growing GDP, insufficient attention is paid to impacts on environmental, social, and psychological health. In turn, these undermine economic performance, leading to further narrowing of the focus of economic policy on GDP growth. “Unless our economic models evolve, starting with reconfiguring GDP to account for social production, we will continue to face these pervasive and worsening challenges”.

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Music for the NeuroCentury podcast is composed by Rafał Kulczycki