Appendix: Sources of methods and measures of wellbeing and progress

In this appendix we provide links to:

  • Cross-national measures of wellbeing and progress, such as the UN Human Development Index, OECD's Better Life Index and Gallup's World Poll;
  • Cross-national developments and methodologies, including the Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi Commission recommendations and work coordinated by Eurostat across the European Union;
  • National, regional and local measures of wellbeing and progress, either under development or in regular production.

We are sure we will not have identified every initiative! We have drawn particularly on a list of 75 ‘indicator projects’ around the world compiled by Australian Statistician, Brian Pink, and presented at the OECD World Forum in India in 2012. The Australian Bureau of Statistics also kindly provided a list of a further 55 indicator projects within Australia, at national, state, city and community levels. This leads us to suggest that readers search out initiatives by their own national statistical office, universities and colleges, national, regional and local government and non-governmental and civil society organisations. Do please tell us about initiatives we have not included here (email to p.allin@imperial.ac.uk) or if links need updating – we accessed them all during 2013, mainly between September and December.

Cross-national measures

Get The Wellbeing of Nations: Meaning, Motive and Measurement now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.