ABSTRACT
This volume aims to present a full-fledged case study of the national and subnational figures for wealth in an industrialized, populous, and relatively homogenous country with a decreasing population that is ranked third among world economic powers. As detailed in the ensuing chapters, one salient feature of this book is the presentation of a disaggregation of inclusive wealth within a nation, which remains rare because the concept of inclusive wealth formally appeared only in 2012. As such, this chapter is meant to provide a conceptual and theoretical framework that leads to an empirical analysis. Excellent surveys exist on green national accounting, genuine savings, and inclusive wealth by pioneers in the field, including those by Asheim (2000), Arrow et al. (2003a), Asheim (2003), Weitzman (2003), Heal and Kriström (2005), Hamilton and Atkinson (2006), Dasgupta (2009), Aronsson and Löfgren (2010), the World Bank (2011), and Barbier (2015). The goal for this chapter is then naturally confined to introducing the minimum framework, which basically keeps the established methodology intact while referencing new results or suggestions that are in the pipeline when they are considered relevant to a regional discussion, which is the mainstay of the current volume.
