Human Development Theory

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Human Development Theory

• February 2007

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Human development theory

• an economic theory that merges older ideas from
• ecological economics,
• sustainable development,
• welfare economics,
• and feminist economics.

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Like ecological economics

• it focuses on measuring well-being and detecting
  uneconomic growth that comes at the expense of
  human health.
• However, it goes further in seeking not only to
  measure but to optimize well-being by some
  explicit modelling of how social capital and
  instructional capital can be deployed to optimize
  the overall value of human capital in an economy
  - which is itself part of an ecology.
• The role of individual capital within that
  ecology, and the adaptation of the individual to
  live well within it, is a major focus of these
  theories.

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• What is the relationship between our wealth and
  our ability to live as we would like?"
• Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom

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• This question cannot be answered strictly from an
  energy, feminist, family, environmental health,
  peace, social justice, or ecological well-being
  point of view, although all of these may be
  factors in our happiness, and if tolerances of
  any of these are violated seriously, it would
  seem impossible to be happy at all.

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Human development theory

• is a major synthesis that is probably not
  confined within the bounds of conventional
  economics or political science, nor even the
  political economy that relates the two.

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Quality of life

• The well-being or quality of life' of a
  population is an important concern in economics
  and political science

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Components to well-being

• standard of living - the amount of money and
  access to goods and services that a person has
  these numbers are fairly easily measured.
• freedom, happiness, art, environmental health,
  and innovation are far harder to measure.
• This has created an inevitable imbalance in
  programs and policies

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Aristotle

• Nicomachean Ethics - the notion of eudaimonia, a
  Greek term often translated as happiness, as
  central.
• The neologism liveability (or livability), from
  the adjective liv(e)able, is an abstract noun now
  often applied to the built environment or a town
  or city, meaning its overall contribution to the
  quality of life of inhabitants.

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Health Care

• Understanding quality of life is today
  particularly important in, where monetary
  measures do not readily apply.
• Decisions on what research or treatments to
  invest the most in are closely related to their
  effect of a patient's quality of life.

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Measuring (HRQoL)

• health-related quality of life
• 'quality-adjusted life years' (QALYs) and
• 'disability-adjusted life years' (DALYs)
• both equal 1 for each year of full-health life,
  and less than 1 for various degrees of illness or
  disability.
• Thus the cost-effectiveness of a treatment can be
  assessed by the cost per QALY or DALY it produces

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EXAMPLE

• A cancer treatment which costs 10,000 and on
  average gives the patient 2 extra years of full
  health costs 5000 per QALY.
• Assessing treatments in this way avoids the much
  greater problems associated with putting a
  monetary value on life, as required in other
  areas of economics
• Saying that a treatment costs 5000 per QALY
  (i.e. per year of life) does not say or assume
  anything about the monetary value of a year of
  life or about the real quality of that life.

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• Another method is by subtracting the "standard of
  living", according to the technical definition of
  the term.
• For example, people in rural areas and small
  towns are generally reluctant to move to cities,
  even if it would mean a substantial increase in
  their standard of living.
• So, the quality of life of living in a rural area
  is of enough value to offset a higher standard of
  living.
• Similarly people must be paid more to accept jobs
  that will lower their quality of life, night
  jobs, ones with extensive travel all pay more and
  the difference in salaries can also give a
  measure of the value of quality of life.

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Research in the field

• Concernes with developing, evaluating and
  applying quality of life measures within health
  related research
• Many focus on the measurement of health related
  quality of life (HRQoL), rather than a global
  conceptualisation of quality of life.
• They also focus on measuring HRQoL from the
  perspective of the patient and thus take the form
  of self completed questionnaires
• International Society for Quality of Life

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Groups and Agencies

• The Economist Quality-of-life index
• Mercer Human Resource Consulting Quality of
  Living Survey
• Vanderford-Riley well being schedule
• Physical quality-of-life index
• UN Human Development Index
• Genuine Progress Indicator
• Gross National Happiness
• New Economics Foundation

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• Applications in politics

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United Kingdom

• David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative
  Party (UK), has put Quality of Life issues at the
  heart of his policy agenda.
• Linking environmental issues (e.g. climate
  change) with policies on waste, transport,
  energy, water, planning and rural affairs.
• He has established a Quality of Life Policy Group
  (http//www.qualityoflifechallenge.com) to
  examine all these areas.

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New Zealand

• The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand uses
  Quality of life as a slogan.

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North America(USA Canada)

• The term has often been used, since the 1980s and
  esp.
• Broken Window Theory
• Seventh Generation Standard
• 1990s, in connection with the presence or
  absence of so-called victimless crimes ,
  alternate name of "quality-of-life crimes."

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Broken Window Theory

• James Q. Wilson
• The theory asserts that relatively minor problems
  left unattended (such as public urination by
  homeless individuals) send a subliminal message
  that disorder in general is being tolerated, and
  as a result, more serious crimes as well end up
  being committed (the analogy being that a broken
  window left unrepaired exudes an image of general
  dilapidation).
• Wilson's theories have been expounded by many
  prominent American mayors, most notably Oscar
  Goodman in Las Vegas, Richard Riordan in Los
  Angeles, Rudolph Giuliani in New York City and
  Gavin Newsom in San Francisco. Their cities have
  instituted so-called zero tolerance policies,
  i.e. that do not tolerate even minor crimes.

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Seventh Generation Standard

• One attempt to take quality of life more into
  account in government decisions
• The effect of any decision today should be judged
  by its effect in six generations.
• in the United States with the proposed Seventh
  Generation Amendment proposal to the U.S.
  Constitution,
• and in Canada with the Canada Well-Being
  Measurement Act co-authored by Mike Nickerson of
  the Green Party of Ontario and Joe Jordan, a
  former Liberal Party of Canada Member of
  Parliament.
• This strategy still would be very difficult to
  implement as predicting the future is never easy.
  Decision makers seven generations ago in the
  early mid-nineteenth century would have great
  difficulty comprehending today's realities.