New Indicators and Measurement Methods for Welfare in the Global Economy Era

This study discusses the inadequacy of GDP alone as a measure of welfare in the global economic age and examines alternative welfare indicators and measurement methods. This study, which discusses the human development index (HDI), the inequality adjusted human development index (I-HDI), the gender inequality index (GII), the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), the social progress index (SPI), the happy planet index (HPI), the better life index (BLI), the Legatum prosperity index(LPI), the human capital index (HCI), and the ecological footprint (EF) methods, shares the country rankings of these methods and reveals the differences in the results depending on the method. It also draws attention to the differences between the economic size and welfare level by sharing the rankings of the world's 10 largest economies in alternative methods. In addition, the study examines the obstacles to the inability to establish a complete, precise, and generally accepted method of measuring welfare.

A Comparison of Your Better Life Index and Its Antecedents Across Two Chinese Cultures

OECD identified 11 topics in Your Better Life Index (YBLI). YBLI is generally accepted as an essential indicator of material living conditions and quality of life. This study compared YBLI in two predominantly Chinese regions, i.e., Macau (a former Portuguese territory in China) and Zhuhai in the Greater Bay Area in the southern part of the People’s Republic of China. Data were collected from 446 (231 Macau and 215 Zhuhai) ethnic Chinese residents in the two regions. Results revealed the Macau residents to be much more satisfied with life (significantly higher ratings on more YBLI topics) than their Zhuhai counterparts. Regression analyses revealed Chinese Values and Family Emotional Support to be strong predictors of YBLI in Zhuhai, while Future Prospects and Self-Efficacy explained most variance for YBLI in Macau. The results of the comparisons are discussed in terms of seminaries and differences in the cultures and economic development of the regions.

Sustainable development and quality of life in Poland compared to other OECD member countries

The aim of the publication is to analyze the concept of sustainable development in the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and De-velopment (OECD) with particular emphasis on the quality of life of Polish citizens against the background of other member countries of this organization. Analyzing selected measures of the sustainable development of OECD member countries in the period 2000-2018, the increase in social and individual well-being of the inhab-itants and the harmonious arrangement of the relationship between man and the human environment were revealed. The progressive degradation of the natural en-vironment was stopped, the effectiveness of using natural resources was increased and the comfort of life of the inhabitants was improved in the conditions of pro-gressive economic growth. Considering the total index of Better Life Index, it was found that Poland was in this respect in the third tenth of all 37 OECD member countries. Poland achieved better results than the average in the areas of "personal safety", "education", and "balance between work and home life". However, for the remaining eight criteria ("housing", "life satisfaction", "civic engagement", "work and wages", "society", "quality of the environment", "income and wealth", "health") Poland achieved much worse results than the average for OECD coun-tries.

When Does Economic Freedom Promote Well Being? On the Moderating Role of Long-Term Orientation

An increasing volume of literature has shown that economic freedom is related to life satisfaction. However, life satisfaction may not fully describe well-being because of its subjective nature. This study contributes to previous literature by extending analysis of the relationship between economic freedom and life satisfaction to other dimensions of well-being as measured by the better life index of the OECD that includes both objective and subjective measures. A second innovation of this paper is that, in explaining the differences in well-being between countries, we conjecture that the relationship between free market institutions as measured by economic freedom and well-being is moderated by the cultural dimension of long-term orientation. This hypothesis is supported for six out of 11 dimensions of well-being: income, community, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work—life balance. Our study shows that looking at interdependencies between culture and formal institutions can increase the explanatory power of internationally comparative research into well-being.