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Human Well-being and Economic Well-being: What Values Are Implicit in Current Indices?

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Author Info
Lars Osberg
Andrew Sharpe ()

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Abstract

This paper develops an Index of Economic Well-being (IEWB) for the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway and Sweden for the period 1980 to 2001 which recognizes four components: Current effective per capita consumption flows; Net societal accumulation of stocks of productive resources; Income distribution; and Economic security. Since the Human Development Index uses GDP per capita to measure “command over resources? which implicitly makes the strong value judgment that inequality and insecurity do not matter, the paper demonstrates that a better measure of “command over resources?has a significant effect on the trend and level of the HDI ?particularly for the United States, which slips to last place among the countries examined.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for the Study of Living Standards in its series CSLS Research Reports with number 2003-04.

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Date of creation: Aug 2003
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Handle: RePEc:sls:resrep:0304

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Related research
Keywords: Well-being; Wellbeing; Well Being; Unemployment; Human Capital; Unemployment Insurance; IEWB; ILMW; Inequality; Poverty; Insecurity; Economic Security; Health; Health Expenditure; Single Parent; Single-parent; Family Break-up; Retirement; Old Age; Human Development Index; HDI; Command Over Resources; Human Capital; Consumption; Household Production; Leisure; Wealth; Capital Stock; Environmental Damage; R&D Stock; Research and Development; R&D; Natural Resources; Unpaid Work; Linear Scaling Technique; Social Indicator; Indicator; Weighting; Weights;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O57 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare
I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Capital; Investment; Capacity
E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution
E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. William D. Nordhaus, 2002. "The Health of Nations: The Contribution of Improved Health to Living Standards," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1355, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Anthony B Atkinson, 2003. "Income Inequality in OECD Countries: Data and Explanations," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  3. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Smeeding, Timothy M. & Merz, Joachim, 1994. "Relative Inequality and Poverty in Germany and the United States Using Alternative Equivalence Scales," MPRA Paper 7229, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Osberg, L & Xu, K, 1997. "International Comparisons of Poverty Intensity : Index Decomposition and Bootstrap Inference," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive 97-03, Dalhousie, Department of Economics.
  5. Di Tella, Rafael & MacCulloch, Robert J. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2001. "The Macroeconomics of Happiness," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 615, University of Warwick, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. William D. Nordhaus & James Tobin, 1972. "Is Growth Obsolete?," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect Vol 5: Economic Growth, pages 1-80 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Lars Osberg, 1998. "Economic Insecurity," Discussion Papers 0088, University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
  8. Phipps, Shelley & Garner, Thesia I, 1994. "Are Equivalence Scales the Same for the United States and Canada?," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(1), pages 1-17, March.
  9. Keuning, Steven, 1998. "A Powerful Link between Economic Theory and Practice: National Accounting [Review Article]," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(3), pages 437-46, September.
  10. Osberg, L., 2000. "Long Run Trends in Economic Inequality in Five Countries - a Birth Cohort View," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive 2000-1, Dalhousie, Department of Economics.
  11. Osberg, L. & Sharpe, A., 1998. "An Index of Economic Well-being for Canada," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive 98-08, Dalhousie, Department of Economics.
  12. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-59, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Osberg, Lars & Sharpe, Andrew, 2002. "An Index of Economic Well-Being for Selected OECD Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(3), pages 291-316, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Lars Osberg & Andrew Sharpe, 2003. "An Index of Labour Market Well-being for OECD Countries," CSLS Research Reports 2003-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, revised Jan 2004. [Downloadable!]
  2. Andrew Sharpe, 2004. "Literature Review of Frameworks for Macro-indicators," CSLS Research Reports 2004-03, Centre for the Study of Living Standards. [Downloadable!]
  3. Andrew Sharpe & Jeremy Smith, 2005. "Measuring the Impact of Research on Well-being: A Survey of Indicators of Well-being," CSLS Research Reports 2005-02, Centre for the Study of Living Standards. [Downloadable!]
  4. Jaya Krishnakumar, 2004. "Going Beyond Functionings to Capabilities : an Econometric Model to Explain and Estimate Capabilities," Cahiers du Département d'Econométrie 2004.12, Département d'Econométrie, Université de Genève. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-22.

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