Well-being for Public Policy

Well-being for Public Policy PDF

Author: Ed Diener

Publisher: Oxford Positive Psychology

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0195334078

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The authors explain why subjective indicators of well-being are needed, showing how these can offer useful input and giving examples of policy uses of well-being measures. They also describe the validity of the subjective well-being measures as well as potential problems, then delve into objections to their use for policy purposes.

The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy

The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy PDF

Author: Matthew D. Adler

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-04-21

Total Pages: 848

ISBN-13: 0199325839

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What are the methodologies for assessing and improving governmental policy in light of well-being? The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of this topic. The contributors draw from welfare economics, moral philosophy, and psychology and are leading scholars in these fields. The Handbook includes thirty chapters divided into four Parts. Part I covers the full range of methodologies for evaluating governmental policy and assessing societal condition-including both the leading approaches in current use by policymakers and academics (such as GDP, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, inequality and poverty metrics, and the concept of the "social welfare function"), and emerging techniques. Part II focuses on the nature of well-being. What, most fundamentally, determines whether an individual life is better or worse for the person living it? Her happiness? Her preference-satisfaction? Her attainment of various "objective goods"? Part III addresses the measurement of well-being and the thorny topic of interpersonal comparisons. How can we construct a meaningful scale of individual welfare, which allows for comparisons of well-being levels and differences, both within one individual's life, and across lives? Finally, Part IV reviews the major challenges to designing governmental policy around individual well-being.

The Politics of Wellbeing

The Politics of Wellbeing PDF

Author: Ian Bache

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-04

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 3319583948

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This volume is the first collection in the field of wellbeing studies that places politics centre stage. Through a combination of intellectual inquiry, empirically-grounded research, and investigation across different settings, this book aims to provide fresh insights and develop new lenses through which to understand the rise and significance of the wellbeing agenda. Divided into three parts, it considers how to define wellbeing for public policy; the prospects for wellbeing as a force for political change; and the link between policy agendas and the everyday lives of people. The book explores the key political issues of power, democracy, and the legitimacy of wellbeing evidence in a range of settings – international, national and subnational/substate. The volume will appeal to wellbeing and politics scholars, as well as students and general readers with an interest in these new political agendas.

The Early Years

The Early Years PDF

Author: Inter-American Development Bank

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-10-22

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1137536497

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This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO license. The Early Years analyzes the development of Latin American and Caribbean children and makes a compelling case for government intervention in what is instinctively a family affair. Spending on effective programs for young children is an investment that, if done well, will have very high returns, while failure to implement such programs will lower the returns on the hefty investments being made in primary, secondary, and higher education. Policies for young children belong at the core of a country's development agenda, alongside policies to develop infrastructure and strengthen institutions. However, if the services provided (or funded) by governments are to benefit children, they must be substantially better than what is currently being delivered in the region. This book offers suggestions for improving public policy in this critical area.

Welfare and Well-being

Welfare and Well-being PDF

Author: Bill Jordan

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2008-09-10

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9781847420800

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In this original book Bill Jordan presents a new analysis of well-being in terms of its social value, and outlines ways in which this could be incorporated into public policy decisions.

Health Care and Public Policy

Health Care and Public Policy PDF

Author: David A. Reisman

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1847207138

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Health care is absorbing an increasing share of resources in all countries. It is the task of public policy to ensure that the nation secures good quality attention at an affordable price. This book, distinguishing clearly between health status and health care, examines the ways in which governments can keep down morbidity and mortality while also ensuring that treatments are medically justifiable, economically cost-effective and socially equitable. Ignorance, uncertainty, asymmetrical information, professional monopolies, insurance and poverty all mean that the market by itself is not enough. Pragmatic intervention is also required to ensure that well-being and social justice are delivered in combination with value for money. Health Care and Public Policy is a comprehensive and intelligible cross-disciplinary account of the objectives of health care policy (medical, social, economic) and of the policy-tools that government can employ (cost benefit analysis, entry barriers, competition) in order to ensure that scarce resources are not wasted nor needy social groups deprived of basic and affordable care. Health policy is hotly debated in all countries. This cross-national book is timely and relevant. It will be of special interest to academics and students who want to deepen their understanding of health economics, social policy and administration, public policy and government, political economy and the logic of institutions.

Behavioural Public Policy

Behavioural Public Policy PDF

Author: Adam Oliver

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-10-24

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1107042631

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In this accessible collection, leading academic economists, psychologists and philosophers apply behavioural economic findings to practical policy concerns.

Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research

Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research PDF

Author: Kenneth C. Land

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-11-25

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 9400724217

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The aim of the Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research is to create an overview of the field of Quality of Life (QOL) studies in the early years of the 21st century that can be updated and improved upon as the field evolves and the century unfolds. Social indicators are statistical time series “...used to monitor the social system, helping to identify changes and to guide intervention to alter the course of social change”. Examples include unemployment rates, crime rates, estimates of life expectancy, health status indices, school enrollment rates, average achievement scores, election voting rates, and measures of subjective well-being such as satisfaction with life-as-a-whole and with specific domains or aspects of life. This book provides a review of the historical development of the field including the history of QOL in medicine and mental health as well as the research related to quality-of-work-life (QWL) programs. It discusses several of QOL main concepts: happiness, positive psychology, and subjective wellbeing. Relations between spirituality and religiousness and QOL are examined as are the effects of educational attainment on QOL and marketing, and the associations with economic growth. The book goes on to investigate methodological approaches and issues that should be considered in measuring and analysing quality of life from a quantitative perspective. The final chapters are dedicated to research on elements of QOL in a broad range of countries and populations.

Subjective Well-Being

Subjective Well-Being PDF

Author: Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 0309294479

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Subjective well-being refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domains and activities in their lives. This information has already proven valuable to researchers, who have produced insights about the emotional states and experiences of people belonging to different groups, engaged in different activities, at different points in the life course, and involved in different family and community structures. Research has also revealed relationships between people's self-reported, subjectively assessed states and their behavior and decisions. Research on subjective well-being has been ongoing for decades, providing new information about the human condition. During the past decade, interest in the topic among policy makers, national statistical offices, academic researchers, the media, and the public has increased markedly because of its potential for shedding light on the economic, social, and health conditions of populations and for informing policy decisions across these domains. Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience explores the use of this measure in population surveys. This report reviews the current state of research and evaluates methods for the measurement. In this report, a range of potential experienced well-being data applications are cited, from cost-benefit studies of health care delivery to commuting and transportation planning, environmental valuation, and outdoor recreation resource monitoring, and even to assessment of end-of-life treatment options. Subjective Well-Being finds that, whether used to assess the consequence of people's situations and policies that might affect them or to explore determinants of outcomes, contextual and covariate data are needed alongside the subjective well-being measures. This report offers guidance about adopting subjective well-being measures in official government surveys to inform social and economic policies and considers whether research has advanced to a point which warrants the federal government collecting data that allow aspects of the population's subjective well-being to be tracked and associated with changing conditions.