Well-Being Measurement

Matthew Adler and Koen Decancq

No 2105, Working Papers from Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp

Abstract: The social welfare function (SWF) framework includes a well-being measure w(∙), for converting outcomes into vectors (lists) of well-being numbers. These well-being numbers are interpersonally comparable. This chapter discusses the construction of the well-being measure. It supposes that w(∙) operates on individual “histories,†a history being a combination of an attribute bundle a and a preference R. That is w(∙) = w(a, R). This setup is quite general. It encompasses preference-based well-being measures (namely those that assign well-being numbers to histories containing different bundles but the same preference in deference to that preference), as well as non-preference based measures. The chapter covers both, although mainly focusing on the former. Here, two approaches are discussed: the “equivalence approach,†whereby an individual’s well-being hinges on her attributes and her ordinal preference; and the “vNM approach,†which uses lottery preferences rather than ordinal preferences.

Date: 2021-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap
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