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-being and the related concepts of poverty and inequality than ever before, as a result of many conceptual and methodological advances and better data. Yet despite this, the vitality of underlying concepts and the quality of data are repeatedly challenged and there remains much to be desired, particularly with regard to the world’s poorest countries. This book examines advances in underlying well-being, poverty, and inequality concepts and corresponding empirical applications and case studies. The authors examine traditional monetary concepts and measurements, and non-monetary factors including educational achievement, longevity, health, and subjective well-being.

Table of contents
  1. Introduction
    1. Human Well-being Concepts and Measures
    Mark McGillivray, Matthew Clarke
  2. Part I: Human Well-being Concepts
    2. Does It Matter That We Do Not Agree on the Definition of Poverty?: A Comparison of Four Approaches
    Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi, Ruhi Saith, Frances Stewart
  3. Part I: Human Well-being Concepts
    3. Economic Well-being and Non-economic Well-being
    Andy Sumner
    More Working Paper | Economic Well-being and Non-economic Well-being
  4. Part I: Human Well-being Concepts
    4. The Four Qualities of Life: Ordering Concepts and Measures of the Good Life
    Ruut Veenhoven
  5. Part I: Human Well-being Concepts
    5. Inequalities, Agency, and Well-being: Conceptual Linkages and Measurement Challenges in Development
    Douglas A. Hicks
    More Working Paper | Inequalities, Agency, and Well-being
  6. Part II: Well-being Measures and Applications
    6. On the Measurement of Human Well-being: Fuzzy Set Theory and Sen's Capability Approach
    Mina Baliamoune-Lutz
    More Working Paper | On the Measurement of Human Well-being
  7. Part II: Well-being Measures and Applications
    7. Benchmarking Sustainable Development: A Synthetic Meta-index Approach
    Laurens Cherchye, Timo Kuosmanen
    More Working Paper | Benchmarking Sustainable Development
  8. Part II: Well-being Measures and Applications
    8. Adjusting Human Well-Being Indicators for Gender Disparity: Insightful Empirically?
    Mark McGillivray, J. R. Pillarisetti
  9. Part II: Well-being Measures and Applications
    9. Well-being and the Complexity of Poverty: A Subjective Well-being Approach
    Mariano Rojas
    More Working Paper | Well-being and the Complexity of Poverty
  10. Part II: Well-being Measures and Applications
    10. International Inequality in Human Development Dimensions
    Mark McGillivray
  11. Part II: Well-being Measures and Applications
    11. Assessing Well-being Using Hierarchical Needs
    Matthew Clarke
    More Working Paper | Assessing Well-being Using Hierarchical Needs
  12. Part II: Well-being Measures and Applications
    12. Assessing Poverty and Inequality at a Detailed Regional Level: New Advances in Spatial Microsimulation
    Ann Harding, Rachel Lloyd, Anthea Bill, Anthony King
    More Working Paper | Assessing Poverty and Inequality at a Detailed Regional Level
  13. Part III: Well-being Case Studies
    13. Longevity in Russia's Regions: Do Poverty and Low Public Health Spending Kill?
    Oleksiy Ivaschenko
    More Working Paper | Longevity in Russia's Regions
  14. Part III: Well-being Case Studies
    14. The Medium- and Long-term Effects of an Expansion of Education on Poverty in Côte d'Ivoire: A Dynamic Microsimulation Study
    Michael Grimm
    More Working Paper | The Medium- and Long-term Effects of an Expansion of Education on Poverty in Côte d'Ivoire
  15. Part III: Well-being Case Studies
    15. Dynamics of Poverty in Ethiopia
    Arne Bigsten, Abebe Shimeles
    More Working Paper | Dynamics of Poverty in Ethiopia
  16. Part III: Well-being Case Studies
    16. Prospects for 'Pro-Poor' Growth in Africa
    Arne Bigsten, Abebe Shimeles
    More Working Paper | Prospects for 'Pro-Poor' Growth in Africa
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