Put simply, the Genuine Progress Indicator deducts environmental and social costs from the economic benefits.

Dr Lawn points to the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska as a case study that establishes the merit of the Genuine Progress Indicator and the serious shortcomings of measures like Gross Domestic Product. The estimated $2 billion poured into the cleanup of the oil spill boosted the regional Alaskan Gross State Product considerably but took no account of the massive environmental damage that will see some coastal habitats take decades to recover. Had a GPI been measured for Alaska at the time, its value would have fallen.

So what does the Genuine Progress Indicator tell us? Dr Lawn argues that our wellbeing, as measured by the GPI on a per head of population basis, tends to go up as per capital GDP rises but eventually falls once the per capita GDP reaches a threshold level. Because the initial studies were of rich nations, this threshold level of per capita GDP was assumed to be around twenty thousand international dollars (I$20,000) – a measurement device based on purchasing power that allows comparisons between different currencies.

"After the plateau, our wellbeing starts to fall. And it is not because there are no more economic benefits, there are. But the social and environmental costs of growing the economy eventually rise faster than the economic benefits," Dr Lawn told Spectrum.

While the Genuine Progress Indicator dates from the 1980s and has had various modifications since, it has generally only been applied to mature, industrialised economies in Europe and the US.

Dr Lawn calculated GPIs for Australia and India and worked with analysts within Australia and overseas to calculate GPIs for New Zealand, Japan, China, Thailand and Vietnam using publicly available economic data and cost data from past environmental and social research.

Conventional economic wisdom would have the per capita GPI of each of the developing countries still rising because they have not reached the threshold level of per capita GDP of around I$20,000.

But Dr Lawn and his colleagues didn’t find that at all. Rather, China’s per capita Genuine Progress Indicator started to fall around 2002 when per capita GDP reached about 5000 international dollars (I$5000).

In Thailand, one of the more successful economies in South East Asia, per capita Genuine Progress Indicator also started to fall in 2001, when per capita GDP reached about I$7500. For India and Vietnam, per capita GPI was still increasing but nowhere near the rate that it’s per capita GDP was rising.

Dr Lawn’s research results suggest that developing countries are reaching some sort of threshold level of per capita GDP at a much lower rate than the rich countries. It also suggests these countries may never reach the level of wellbeing rich countries currently enjoy.

"China and Thailand appear to have already reached their threshold level. So the more they try and grow their economies, their national wellbeing, as measured by the GPI, decreases because environmental costs and many social costs are escalating dramatically.

"China is enjoying a massive increase in economic benefits but the environmental and social costs are soaring and outweighing this increase in economic benefit.

"Australia, the US, and European countries were lucky because they began their development cycle much earlier when there was what you might call an 'empty world' with fewer people and the initial impact of growing the economy was very small.

"We were biting into a large stock of natural capital of pristine environments and abundant natural resources. But now we have chewed a lot away and discharged huge volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As these developing countries grow, it is a 'fuller world' and their costs are rising at a much faster rate than ours were for the same level of Gross Domestic Product."

Because the developing countries are not progressing at the rate many believe they are, Dr Lawn suggests that richer countries should not be growing their economies any more.

"People will say: 'If we don’t grow our economies our standard of living will fall'. But there is a concept known as the Steady State Economy which proposes that an economy should eventually remain the same size by producing just enough new wealth to maintain the required wealth over time for its population.

"An increase in wellbeing within the Steady State Economy requires improvements in the quality of new goods and services, innovation, more efficient resource use, a fairer distribution of wealth, and the creation of better quality, more interesting jobs which, in turn, allow for increased leisure time.

"If we work smarter we can move to a Steady State Economy and leave some room in the global economy for the developing countries to grow their economies and increase their per capita Genuine Progress Indicator to something near ours.

"Is the public ready for a debate on stopping economic growth in the rich countries to boost the wellbeing of the global community? I think it is because the argument, once embraced, is logical. Most people are conditioned to thinking that the economy has to grow for us to be better off. But our research suggests we can have a win-win outcome where we work more efficiently and leave room for the poorer countries to grow, at least until they too must move to a Steady State Economy."

This debate, Dr Lawn contends, must take off soon because we are heading into some pretty desperate times.

"If you look out of a window in Australia you can see the benefits of our prosperity with little apparent cost. But the view is not the same in China. It is time for new thinking in the economic and environmental debate."