Welfare economics

Use of microeconomic techniques to evaluate well-being at the aggregate level

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We include updates on Gini coefficient, Social democracy, City quality of life indices, Third place, Quality of life, List of countries by home ownership rate, Mixed economy, Pareto efficiency, Competition law, Externality, Well-being, Post-war consensus, Poverty threshold, Leisure, Marginal utility, Deadweight loss ... and more.

2025
City quality of life indices
Monocle publishes its Quality of Life Survey for 2025, with Paris ranking first, followed by Madrid and Athens. The survey continues to evaluate cities on multiple comprehensive criteria.
2025
City quality of life indices
IMD released the Smart City Index, ranking Zurich, Oslo, Geneva, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi as the top 5 most livable cities globally.
June 2025
City quality of life indices
Numbeo released its Quality of Life Index ranking for 2025, featuring 242 cities globally. The Hague, Netherlands topped the list, with Dutch cities prominently occupying multiple top positions.
2024
City quality of life indices
Release of the Happy City Index ranking, which evaluates cities based on 23 different areas of activity across five key categories to determine residents' quality of life and happiness.
2024
City quality of life indices
Mercer released its annual Quality of Living Survey, ranking cities globally based on 39 criteria. Zürich, Switzerland ranked first, followed by Vienna, Austria, and Geneva, Switzerland.
2024
City quality of life indices
Monocle released its 2024 Quality of Life Survey, with Munich ranking first, followed by Vienna and Zürich. The survey continues to evaluate cities across criteria including safety, connectivity, climate, architecture, public transport, tolerance, and environmental factors.
2024
City quality of life indices
Movingto Global Liveability Index released, ranking cities worldwide based on stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. Vienna tops the list as the most livable city for 2024.
2023
Value of life
Australian government officially valued a statistical life at AU$5.4 million and set the annual value at AU$235,000 for economic and policy-making purposes.
2023
Value of life
Department of Transportation further increased the value of a statistical life to $13.2 million.
April 2023
Value of life
NZTA significantly increased the value of a statistical life to NZ$12.5 million in April.
2022
Genuine progress indicator
GPI study conducted for the United States and California by Eli Lazarus and Clair Brown, covering the period from 1995 to 2017.
2022
Value of life
Department of Transportation increased the value of a statistical life to $12.5 million.
2022
Value of life
Ministry of Health calculated the value of a statistical life at NZ$150,000 per year.
July 2020
Value of life
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimated the value of a statistical life at $7.5 million.
June 2019
Value of life
Ministry of Transport set the value of a statistical life at NZ$4.53 million in June.
2018
Working poor
In the UK, the working poor rate was 10%, with a median income of £507 per week.
2018
Working poor
The official poverty rate was 5.1%, while the Supplemental Poverty Measure showed a higher rate of 7.2%.
2018
Working poor
Poverty rates analysis revealed significant disparities in poverty levels among different family structures: married couples at 7.7%, cohabiting partners at 13.9%, individuals at 21.9%, single mothers at 25%, and single fathers at 15.1%.
2018
Working poor
US Census Bureau reported 38.1 million US citizens below the poverty line, representing 11.8% of the population, with 21.1 million people aged 18-64 in poverty, of which nearly half (5.1%) were working at least part-time.
2018
Patient-reported outcome
The organization starts using MedEngage services to collect Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) from thousands of epilepsy patients across Maharashtra through a zero-cost helpline.
2018
Patient-reported outcome
Introduction of the term 'Patient Reported Health Data' to encompass patient-reported information beyond outcomes, including comorbidities, medications, and hospitalizations.
2018
Value of life
A study using the hedonic wage approach estimated the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) for blue-collar male workers in manufacturing industries of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India at 44.69 million INR (equivalent to $0.64 million).
2017
Working poor
6.9 million individuals were defined as working poor in the United States.
2016
Value of life
NZTA revised the value of a statistical life to NZ$4.14 million.
August 2016
Value of life
Department of Transportation updated the value of a statistical life to $9.6 million.
2014
Value of life
Department of Transportation first estimated the value of a statistical life at $9.2 million.
2014
Value of life
Calculated an alternative VSL using the World Bank method adjusted to country-specific GDP, resulting in an estimated value of US$8.96 million (S$11.3 million).
2013
Genuine progress indicator
Comprehensive global GPI study published by Kubiszewski, Costanza, and colleagues, analyzing data from multiple countries including the United States, UK, Australia, China, and others from 1950 to various end years.
2013
Value of life
The Treasury updated the value of a statistical life to NZ$3.85 million in New Zealand.
2011
Genuine progress indicator
Maryland's GPI continued to demonstrate change, increasing by two points from 2010.
2011
Working poor
The US Census Bureau began publishing the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), introducing a more comprehensive method of calculating poverty status.
2011
Patient-reported outcome
Epilepsy Foundation of India begins providing free diagnosis and treatment to people with epilepsy across rural Maharashtra.
2010
Genuine progress indicator
Maryland's GPI showed a two-point increase from the previous year.
2010
Value of life
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated the value of a statistical life at $9.1 million.

This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Genuine progress indicator, Working poor, Value of life, City quality of life indices & Patient-reported outcome, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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