Measuring the Regional Quality of Life

Jean H. P. Paelinck

Chapter 6 in Regional Science: Perspectives for the Future, 1997, pp 80-87 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Over many decades economists have studied the problems raised by the evaluation of ‘non-merchant’ aspects of human activity: euphoria aspects (in the medical sense of the term: from the Greek ‘feeling well’); aspects of artistic emotion (as one of the dimensions of aesthetic activity); and security aspects. In a previous article (Paelinck, 1970) we presented a concept that transcends affluence and welfare (the ‘non-merchant’ elements of the quality of life) and termed it ‘well-being’. From that point of view, the economic discipline has separated itself from Disraeli’s ‘dismal science’; but still economists keep being accused of professional reductionism. As Power (1980) writes: Yet economists have often been charged with knowing the ‘price of everything but value of none’. Two explanations of this charge are relevant here. As pointed out earlier, economists have in the past concentrated on market or commercial values while ignoring non-market but very real and important values. This is a major failure and an important and persistent bias which this study has tried to help eliminate. Secondly, economists focus primarily on goods in relatively abundant supply and then they focus on value ‘at the margin’, i.e. on the value of small changes in availability. (Power, 1980, p. 86)

Keywords: Regional Quality; Medical Sense; Security Aspect; Regional Wage; High Quality Environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-25514-6_6

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