Measuring Non-economic Well-being Achievement

McGillivray, Mark

doi:10.1057/9780230625594_11

Cited by 25 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In constructing our TNEQoL index for South Africa's eight metropolitan cities, we follow the method …rst proposed by McGillivray (2005) where he stated that one could distinguish between economic and non-economic quality of life by extraction, through principal component analysis (PCA), the maximum possible information from various standard national non-economic quality of life indicators 9 . When applied in this context, non-economic quality of life indicators refers to those indicators other than direct measures of income.…”

Section: Methodology Followed For the Composite Tneqol Indexmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this study, we will utilise a method made famous by McGillivray (2005) and subsequently used by Rossouw and Naudé (2008), Naudé, Krugell and Rossouw (2009), Rossouw and Pacheco (2012) and Pacheco, Rossouw and Lewer (2013) to construct an index for South Africa that measures non-economic quality of life on a sub-national level as measured by its eight metropolitan cities and to determine what relationship (if any) exists between non-economic quality of life and population density. This study …lls the gaps and contributes to the literature in the following ways: (i) it is the …rst study of its kind (to the knowledge of the authors) that investigates the relationship between objectively measured non-economic quality of life and population density; (ii) it is the …rst study to investigate the abovementioned relationship on a sub-national level; (iii) it utilises panel data modelling techniques, not previously used in this type of research, which controls for unobserved heterogeneity; (iv) the usage of panel data has the additional advantage that by testing for endogeneity that spreads from simultaneity, the causal relationship between population density and noneconomic quality of life can be determined and (v) this study is conducted in a developing country whereas the other studies (for example Fassio et al 2013;Glaeser and Shapiro 2001;Glaeser 2012;Walton et al 2008) were conducted in developed countries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Non-Economic Quality of Life and Population Density in South Africa

Greyling

Rossouw

2016

Soc Indic Res

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between population density and non-economic quality of life. Popular opinion has generally been that population density can be seen as bene…cial for economic growth, as it allows for greater productivity, greater incomes and can be translated into higher levels of quality of life. Recently though, growing evidence tends to suggest the exact opposite in that increases in productivity and incomes are not translated into better quality of life. As economic or income variables have always played a signi…cant role in this research, questions regarding the relationship between population density and non-economic quality of life has largely remained unanswered. In this light, the paper utilises a panel data set on the eight metropolitan cities in South Africa for the period 1996 to 2014 to determine the relationship between population density and non-economic quality of life in the South African context. In the analyses we make use of panel estimation techniques which allows us to compare changes in this relationship over time as well as adding a spatial dimension to the results. This paper contributes to the literature by …rstly studying the aforementioned relationship over time and secondly conducting the analyses at a sub-national level in a developing country. Our results show that there is a signi…cant and negative relationship between population density and non-economic quality of life. Based on our …ndings policy measures to encourage urbanisation should not be supported if the ultimate outcome is to increase non-economic quality of life.

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Section: Methodology Followed For the Composite Tneqol Indexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Economic Quality of Life and Population Density in South Africa

Greyling

Rossouw

2016

Soc Indic Res

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“…The importance of action by people such as Douglass to confront situations of serious oppression and deprivation has led many working on poverty reduction to introduce measures of agency, autonomy, empowerment, self-direction, and self-determination into poverty analyses. A number of studies draw conceptually on the human development and capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and others (Kabeer 1999;Alkire 2002;Clark 2002;Narayan 2002 inter alia;Clark 2003;Gasper & Van Staveren 2003;Hill 2003;Alkire 2005;Alsop & Heinsohn 2005;Gibson & Woolcock 2005;Mcgillivray 2005;Narayan-Parker 2005;Alsop et al 2006;Ghuman et al 2006;Alkire 2007b;Ibrahim & Alkire 2007). Sen argues that agency -a person's ability to act on behalf of what he or she values and has reason to value -is intrinsically valuable, instrumentally effective in reducing poverty, and of central importance.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chapter 24 Concepts and Measures of Agency

Alkire¹

2008

Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen

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Agency is inescapably plural in both concept and measurement. In Sen's account of agency, i) agency is exercised with respect to goals the person values; ii) agency includes effective power as well as direct control; iii) agency may advance wellbeing or may address other-regarding goals; iv) to identify agency also entails an assessment of the value of the agent's goals; v) the agent's responsibility for a state of affairs should be incorporated into his or her evaluation of it. This chapter refracts the literature on agency measurement through the first four fo these characteristics showing how particular survey-based measures of individual agency elucidate or obscure each distinction. It also observes that existing measures used in development tend to focus on control but not effective freedom, on goals the agent has reason to value rather than goals she values, and on own rather than other-regarding agency. The literature on measurement also raises a number of very relevant issues for the conceptual approach.

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“…When considering broader descriptions of development including many other distinct dimensions, a single index will not suffice. However linear data reduction techniques, such as principal component analysis (PCA) or factor analysis, as employed by Adelman and Morris () and McGillivray () tend to overestimate the number of dimensions in development because they do not allow for the possibility of non‐linear relationships between indicators. We measure the dimension of development indicators using techniques developed by Grassberger and Procaccia () and Takens ().…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Human Development Multidimensional?

French

Moore

Canning

2012

J of Intl Development

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Stiglitz's Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP) argued that well-being is multidimensional and identified eight distinct dimensions. Conventional linear techniques confirm that a large number of dimensions are needed to describe development. In contrast, a new non-linear technique that we introduce from chaos theory shows that a smaller number of dimensions are needed to span the development space. From the analysis, variables representing the Health, Education, Inequality and Individual Rights areas of life quality would provide a broad picture of development, whereas income per capita adds little extra information. ). These techniques are non-parametric and allow for non-linear relationships in the data. They were originally developed for the study of dynamic systems in high dimensions where the outcome paths may be cycles, or strange attractors, that may appear random at first sight but have a structure that means they occupy only a low dimensional subspace. We consider a set of 23 development indicators. We find these have dimension five. Our method identifies the dimension of the development space but does not provide a coordinate system. We investigate which variables span the five dimensions of the larger development space. We find that variables representing Health, Education, Inequality and Individual Rights are consistently represented in those subsets with the highest dimension and so should be included in any summary picture of development.Our results suggest that that the process of development is not arbitrary; there are 'laws' that seem to limit possible outcomes. For example, Preston (1975) argues that at each point in time, there is a (non-linear) relationship between a country's level of income per capita and its life expectancy, a relationship that continues to hold (Bloom and Canning, 2007). Kuznets (1955) suggested an inverted-U relationship between income and inequality with the distribution of income initially worsening with economic growth and improving only at 446 D. French et al. (2) and (4) are formed by dividing the number of appearances in column (1) and (3) by the number of indicators used for each area of life quality (e.g. 4 for health: life expectancy at birth, daily calorie intake, daily protein intake (grammes), mortality-infant). Note: Columns

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Measuring Non-economic Well-being Achievement

Cited by 25 publications

References 18 publications

Non-Economic Quality of Life and Population Density in South Africa

Non-Economic Quality of Life and Population Density in South Africa

Chapter 24 Concepts and Measures of Agency

Is Human Development Multidimensional?

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