THE WELLBEING OF NATIONS
MEANING, MOTIVE AND MEASUREMENT

‘A great book that adds much needed well-reasoned argument and weight to the global debate on how we better measure what is getting better and what is not. Hand and Allin chart a series of paths away from the beguiling simplicity of GDP, show where those routes began and to where they might lead. Slowly we are learning to better count what really matters in our lives. This book explains the international collaboration behind this new learning and moves it far forward.’
Daniel Dorling, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford

How and why to use new measures of national wellbeing

We have known for many years that standard measures of a country’s economic performance, like GDP and GNP, fail to tell the whole story about progress and wellbeing.

The Wellbeing of Nations explores national and cross-national initiatives to build wider measures. It covers economic performance, quality of life, the state of the environment, progress, development and sustainability. The authors take the view that national wellbeing — how a country is doing — embraces all these aspects and so measures of real progress need these dimensions.

This book:

• Presents insights drawn from a wide range of national and international developments and provides an extensive appendix of resource materials.
• Provides an in-depth study of the UK measuring national wellbeing programme, with which both authors continue to be involved.
• Explores all the main approaches to wellbeing, such as developments to the national economic accounts, Sen’s capabilities approach and the concept and measurement of sustainable development.
• Offers a historical perspective on progress and examines current developments in this field.

The authors note that it is still early days in the practical application of these wider measures by government and business, but that use should be the main factor driving their development and production. Aspirations are high and there is much to be gained by the use of such wider measures of national wellbeing, progress and development around the world.

The Wellbeing of Nations is aimed at statisticians, economists, social researchers and policy makers in government, including national and international statistics offices. Academics in development studies, economics, environmental studies, positive psychology, health research, anthropology, political studies and sociology will also benefit from this book.

“Although there are brief discussions of technical topics like measurement theory, the book will be useful to researchers across a range of disciplines and the interested general reader.”  (Significance, 15 June 2015)

Paul Allin and David J. Hand, Department of Mathematics, Imperial College, London, UK