This study is based on a survey among decision makers in politics and public administration regarding knowledge and comprehensibility of well-established indicators and reports on growth, wealth and quality of life. Furthermore, information on respondents’ preferences with respect to the modeling of growth, wealth and quality of life were collected. Results suggest that the most common indicators are also the most comprehensible as well as the most often observed and used. Furthermore, these indicators are attributed the highest relevance for decisions and the largest appropriateness for measuring growth, wealth and quality of life. The vast majority of respondents agrees that growth, wealth and quality of life neither can nor should be measured by only one indicator. Largely independent of observable socio-demographic characteristics and party affiliation the use of several selected indicators is preferred. However, there is also a remarkable degree of dissent whether these indicators should be presented equally side by side or whether they should be condensed into one composite indicator.

Publication: The study is available as Chapter 8.1 of the Final Report of the Enquete-Commission  (http://www.bpb.de/shop/buecher/schriftenreihe/175745/schlussbericht-der-enquete-kommission) and in the Journal of Applied Sciences / Schmollers Jahrbuch: Michael Fertig, Marco Puxi, Martin Rosemann und Marian Weimann: Die Wahrnehmung und Berücksichtigung von Wachstums- und Wohlstandsindikatoren durch politische Entscheidungsträger in Deutschland, in: Schmollers Jahrbuch 2014, Vol. 134, No. 1: 61–88 (http://ejournals.duncker-humblot.de/doi/abs/10.3790/schm.134.1.61)