Working Paper
The Happy Farmer
Using survey data from rural Vietnam, this paper documents a statistically significant, positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. Wage workers are less happy than farmers across a range of different types of wage jobs...
Research Brief
A colonial legacy?
The presence of European colonial powers in Africa has left a long-lasting legacy that has severely impacted their development trajectories. But what are the lingering effects of colonization on economic performance, in particular with regard to...
Journal Special Issue
Well-being Achievements in Pacific Asia
Summary measures of human well-being are increasingly used to compare and monitor performance within and across countries. The UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI) is one of a number of measures which have done much to refocus attention on the...
Working Paper
Welfare Changes in China during the Economic Reforms
The study examines welfare changes in China during the reform period (1978- ) by analysing various welfare indicators, the causes of change, and the shifting models. It provides an empirical case to the general debate over the relationship between...
Working Paper
Poverty and Happiness
Every person desires some level of inner fulfilment at different stages of life and this could come from a combination of several factors including material and resource acquisition and social prestige. The challenge, however, is whether happiness...
Working Paper
Does Food Insecurity Impact Subjective Evaluation of Well-being?
Understanding the relationship between food insecurity and subjective evaluation of well-being is critical in designing social welfare policies, especially in developing countries. Surprisingly, literature on the topic is scarce. This study adopted...
Journal Article
The Happy Farmer
Using a unique survey data set this paper documents a positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. This direct effect is only partly offset by negative, indirect effects working through income and other variables. These...
Working Paper
On the Measurement of Human Well-being
Sen’s influential work on human development has led economists to explore new areas that have become increasingly important for human well-being. In particular, Sen emphasizes the importance of the ‘freedom to choose’. Freedom, however, is not always...
Working Paper
Inequality and Welfare Evaluation of Heterogeneous Income Distributions
This paper establishes the principles which should govern the welfare and inequality analysis of heterogeneous income distributions. Two basic criteria—the ‘equity preference’ condition and the ‘compensation principle’—are shown to be fundamentally...
Working Paper
On the Arbitrariness and Robustness of Multi-Dimensional Poverty Rankings
It is often argued that multi-dimensional measures of well-being and poverty—such as those based on the capability approach and related views—are ad hoc. Rankings based on them are not, for this reason, robust to changes in the selection of weights...
Working Paper
Inequalities, Agency, and Well-being
The capabilities approach has emphasized that inequalities can be analyzed in various dimensions of human functioning. Indicators of these inequalities can be incorporated into assessments of well-being. The capabilities approach also highlights the...
Working Paper
Well-being and the Complexity of Poverty
This investigation studies human well-being from a subjective well-being approach. On the basis of a Mexican database the investigation shows that there is a weak relationship between subjective well-being and indicators of well-being such as income...
Working Paper
Indicators of Inequality and Poverty
This essay aims at a broad, main-stream account of the literature on inequality and poverty measurement in the space of income and, additionally, deals with measures of disparity and deprivation in the more expanded domain of capabilities and...
Working Paper
Income-based Measures of Average Well-being
International comparisons of average national incomes omit important information about leisure, home production, health, etc. They are also bedevilled by index number problems. This paper suggests ways of combining working hours and life-expectancy...
Journal Article
Latin American Urban Development into the Twenty-first Century
This article argues for a more systemic engagement with Latin American cities, contending that it is necessary to reconsider their unity in order to nuance the ‘fractured cities’ perspective that has widely come to epitomize the contemporary urban...
Book
Poverty, Income Distribution and Well-Being in Asia during the Transition
The Asian road to the market has generally been seen as a model of success and the object of widespread admiration. This volume evaluates the actual experience and debunks some of the most widespread myths. It does so by identifying the link between...
Book
Inequality, Poverty and Well-being
With more than a billion people living on less than one dollar per day, some evidence of increasing gaps in living conditions within and between countries and the clear evidence of substantial declines in life expectancy or other health outcomes in...
Book
The Quality of Life
This book addresses issues of defining and measuring the quality of life. Recent developments in the philosophical definition of well-being are discussed and linked to practical issues such as the delivery of health care, and the assessment of women...
Book
Understanding Human Well-being
With more than a billion people living on less than one dollar per day, human well-being is a core issue for both researchers and policy-makers. The Millennium Development Goals are a powerful reminder of this point. We now know more about human well...
Working Paper
Composite Indices of Human Well-being
This paper surveys the various composite well-being indices that have been inter-country assessments over the last 40 or so years, including the well known Human Development Index (HDI). A number of issues are considered, including the choice of...
Working Paper
Income Risk and Welfare Status of Rural Households in Nigeria
This paper examines the impact of income risk on the level of well-being of rural households in Nigeria. While income risk is defined as the risks associated with variability in income well-being is defined in terms of the level of utility reached by...
Working Paper
Participatory Approaches and the Measurement of Human Well-being
This paper considers the use of participatory methods in international development research, and asks what contribution these can make to the definition and measurement of well-being. It draws on general lessons arising from the project level, two...
Working Paper
Latin American Urban Development into the 21st Century
This paper argues for a more systemic engagement with Latin American cities, contending it is necessary to reconsider their unity in order to nuance the ‘fractured cities’ perspective that has widely come to epitomise the contemporary urban moment in...
Working Paper
Subjective Measures of Well-being
This paper deals with three questions: (1) What are ‘subjective’ measures? (2) What is ‘well-being’? and (3) Are subjective measures of well-being of use for policymaking, in particular in developing nations? The first question is answered by making...