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The Cost of Well-being

Author

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  • Anna Pettini
  • Vincenzo Patrizii
  • Giuliano Resce
Abstract
Since measures of well-being are meant to be an exercise in documentation, but also a tool for policies and priorities, we suggest an operative way to use them. We evaluate both technical and social efficiency of countries in producing the Better Life Index (BLI) objectives. To assess the efficiency test, we use Data Envelopment Analysis integrated with Principal Component Analysis. Our analysis shows that BLI increases with GDP only for poor countries, extending the Easterlin Paradox to the quality of life measurement; that good performances in BLI are not necessarily due to a high efficiency of the whole system; and that social efficiency is the best predictor of development.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Pettini & Vincenzo Patrizii & Giuliano Resce, 2015. "The Cost of Well-being," CESifo Working Paper Series 5463, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5463
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    2. Raffaele Lagravinese & Paolo Liberati & Giuliano Resce, 2017. "Exploring health outcomes by stochastic multi-objective acceptability analysis: an application to Italian regions," Working Papers. Collection B: Regional and sectoral economics 1703, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    3. Resce, Giuliano & Maynard, Diana, 2018. "What matters most to people around the world? Retrieving Better Life Index priorities on Twitter," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 61-75.
    4. Greco, Salvatore & Ishizaka, Alessio & Resce, Giuliano & Torrisi, Gianpiero, 2020. "Measuring well-being by a multidimensional spatial model in OECD Better Life Index framework," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Paolo Liberati & Giuliano Resce, 2022. "Regional Well-Being and its Inequality in the OECD Member Countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(3), pages 671-700, September.
    6. Shine George & P. P. Anil Kumar, 2022. "Indicator-based assessment of capacity development for disaster preparedness in the Indian context," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 417-435, September.
    7. Lance Newey & Rui Torres Oliveira, 2019. "Wellbeing as Emergent from the Leveraging of Polarities: Harnessing Component Interdependencies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 575-600, July.
    8. Xie, Chengyuan & Jin, Xiaotong, 2023. "The role of digitalization, sustainable environment, natural resources and political globalization towards economic well-being in China, Japan and South Korea," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    10. Lagravinese, Raffaele & Liberati, Paolo & Resce, Giuliano, 2019. "Exploring health outcomes by stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis: An application to Italian regions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(3), pages 1168-1179.
    11. Fusco, Elisa, 2023. "Potential improvements approach in composite indicators construction: The Multi-directional Benefit of the Doubt model," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Better Life Index; Data Envelopment Analysis; quality of life; GDP; welfare; well-being; social efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

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