The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy

by Matthew D. Adler (Editor), Marc Fleurbaey (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199325832
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/21/2016
Series:	Oxford Handbooks
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	848
File size:	39 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Matthew Adler is Richard A. Horvitz Professor of Law and Professor of Economics, Philosophy, and Public Policy at Duke University. He works at the intersection of law, welfare economics, social choice theory, and normative ethics. Adler previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the University of Virginia. Marc Fleurbaey is Robert E. Kuenne Professor of Economics and Humanistic Studies and Professor of Public Affairs at the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. He has widely published in the field of welfare economics, social choice theory, and public economics.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction Matthew D. Adler and Marc Fleurbaey PART I: METHODS OF POLICY ASSESSMENT 2. GDP and Welfare Paul Schreyer 3. Cost-Benefit Analysis Robin Boadway 4. Inequality and Poverty Measures Frank A. Cowell 5. Social Welfare Functions John A. Weymark 6. QALY-Based Cost Effectiveness Analysis Jose Maria Abellan, Carmen Herrero, and Jose-Luis Pinto-Prades 7. Fair Allocation William Thomson 8. Social Ordering Functions François Maniquet 9. Multidimensional Indicators of Inequality and Poverty Satya R. Chakravarty and Maria Ana Lugo 10. Happiness-Based Policy Analysis Daniel Fujiwara and Paul Dolan PART II: CONCEPTIONS OF WELL-BEING 11. Preference-Based Views of Well-Being Krister Bykvist 12. Mental-State Approaches to Well-Being Daniel M. Haybron 13. Objective Goods Thomas Hurka 14. Subjective Well-Being in Psychology Richard E. Lucas 15. Subjective Well-Being in Economics Carol Graham PART III: MEASURING WELL-BEING: A DEBATE 16. Equivalent Income Marc Fleurbaey 17. Extended Preferences Matthew D. Adler 18. SWB as a Measure of Individual Well-Being Andrew E. Clark 19. Does the Choice of Well-Being Measure Matter Empirically? An Illustration with German Data Koen Decancq and Dirk Neumann. 20. Does Fairness Require a Multidimensional Approach? Richard Arneson 21. The Capability Approach Sabina Alkire 22. Measuring Poverty: A Proposal Thomas Pogge and Scott Wisor 23. Multidimensional Poverty Indices: A Critical Assessment Jean-Yves Duclos and Luca Tiberti PART IV: CHALLENGES FOR POLICY ASSESSMENT 24. Social Evaluation under Risk and Uncertainty Philippe Mongin and Marcus Pivato. 25. Individual Responsibility and Equality of Opportunity Francisco H.G. Ferriera and Vito Peragine. 26. Welfare Comparisons with Heterogeneous Prices, Consumption, and Preferences D.S. Prasada Rao 27: Welfare and the Household P.A. Chiappori 28. Preference Inconsistency: A Psychological Perspective Eldar Shafir 29. Lifetime Well-Being, Mortality Risk, and Public Policy Grégory Ponthière 30. The Well-Being of Future Generations John Broome

Editorial Reviews

"In the first part of the 20th century, the early success of such macroeconomic indicators as gross domestic product to track the economy and devise interventions sparked a movement to broaden the measurement of societal performance to include many other aspects of life. Those discussions and investigations extended the concepts across many disciplines outside economics, including philosophy, psychology, and sociology. This handbook is an invaluable summary of this research. Featuring prominent scholars from throughout the world, it probes concepts, methodologies, and outcomes. It is sophisticated in its analysis and thorough in its coverage. Highly recommended." —CHOICE

From the Publisher