What is national wellbeing and what is progress? Why measure these definitions? Why are measures beyond economic performance needed and how will they be used? How do we measure national wellbeing & turn the definitions into observable quantities? Where are we now and where to next?

These questions are asked and answered in this much needed, timely book.

The Wellbeing of Nations provides an accessible and comprehensive overview of the measurement of national well-being, examining whether national wellbeing is more than the sum of the wellbeing of everyone in the country, and identifying and reviewing requirements for new measures. It begins with definitions, describes how to operationalize those definitions, and takes a critical look at the uses to which such measures are to be put. The authors examine initiatives from around the world, using the UK 'measuring national wellbeing programme' as a case study throughout the book, along with case studies drawn from other countries, as well as discussion of the position in some countries not yet drawn into the national wellbeing scene.

About the Author

Paul Allin, Director of Measuring National Wellbeing Programme, Office of National Statistics (retired)
Paul Allin recently retired from the senior civil service where he was most recently the director of the measuring national well-being programme in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and chaired the programme's Technical Advisory Committee. Paul is a Chartered Statistician and worked for nearly 40 years in a number of government departments and agencies, including as the chief statistician and head of social policy in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He is actively involved in the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and was an Honorary Secretary for 6 years.

David Hand, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Imperial College, London
David Hand was Professor of Statistics at Imperial College for eleven years, and is now Emeritus Professor of Mathematics. He has a particular interest in measurement and has written various papers on this topic. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and has won various prizes and awards for his research, including the Guy medal of the Royal Statistical Society and a Royal Society Research Merit Award. He has held consultancies for numerous bodies in the public and private sectors, including serving on the statistics advisory boards of GSK and Astrazeneca, on the Methodology Advisory Board of the UK's Office for National Statistics, and as Chief Scientific Advisor to Winton Capital Management. He has written over 300 scientific papers, has authored/co-authored 15 books, including Measurement Theory and Practice and The World Through Quantification and Statistics: A Very Short Introduction, and edited 11 others. He is well-known for his research in classification, data mining, and consumer credit scoring. He has served twice as president of the Royal Statistical Society.

Reviews

"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)

Book Information
ISBN 9781118489574
Author Paul Allin
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint John Wiley & Sons Inc
Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc
Weight(grams) 594g
Dimensions(mm) 252mm * 178mm * 20mm