Genuine Savings Rates in Developing Countries

A formal model of green national accounting demonstrates that ‘genuine’ saving, net saving less the value of resource depletion and environmental degradation, is a useful indicator of sustainability. Country-level and regional calculations of genuine savings are presented for the period 1970-1993. Sub-Saharan Africa stands out as the region where the greatest dissipation of wealth is occurring. Policy issues are explored. 1 Environment Department, The World Bank. The comments of Danny McCoy, David Pearce and three reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. The opinions expressed are those of the authors, who are responsible for any errors. 2 Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.