Reflections on Measuring and Improving Productivity When Subjective Well-being Is the Objective

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Abstract

This reflection piece by a leading well-being researcher discusses approaches to replacing GDP with subjective well-being as the objective in productivity analysis. It reviews and comments on the three Part II symposium articles, notes the advantages of the DEA approach (particularly Legge and Smith’s capital stocks model and Sarracino and O’Connor’s efficiency analysis), identifies remaining challenges in measuring well-being productivity, and suggests future research directions including the challenge of establishing production models for the non-income determinants of subjective well-being.

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