Paul Allin & David J. Hand 
The Wellbeing of Nations 
Meaning, Motive and Measurement

What is national wellbeing and what is progress? Why measure
these definitions? Why are measures beyond economic
performance needed and how will they be used? How do we measure
national wellbeing & turn the definitions into observable
quantities? Where are we now and where to next?

These questions are asked and answered in this much needed, timely
book.

The Wellbeing of Nations provides an accessible and
comprehensive overview of the measurement of national well-being,
examining whether national wellbeing is more than the sum of the
wellbeing of everyone in the country, and identifying and reviewing
requirements for new measures. It begins with definitions,
describes how to operationalize those definitions, and takes a
critical look at the uses to which such measures are to be put. The
authors examine initiatives from around the world, using the UK
‘measuring national wellbeing programme’ as a case
study throughout the book, along with case studies drawn from other
countries, as well as discussion of the position in some countries
not yet drawn into the national wellbeing scene.

Sobre el autor

Paul Allin, Director of Measuring National Wellbeing Programme, Office of National Statistics (retired)
Paul Allin recently retired from the senior civil service where he was most recently the director of the measuring national well-being programme in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and chaired the programme’s Technical Advisory Committee. Paul is a Chartered Statistician and worked for nearly 40 years in a number of government departments and agencies, including as the chief statistician and head of social policy in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He is actively involved in the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and was an Honorary Secretary for 6 years.

David Hand, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Imperial College, London
David Hand was Professor of Statistics at Imperial College for eleven years, and is now Emeritus Professor of Mathematics. He has a particular interest in measurement and has written various papers on this topic. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and has won various prizes and awards for his research, including the Guy medal of the Royal Statistical Society and a Royal Society Research Merit Award. He has held consultancies for numerous bodies in the public and private sectors, including serving on the statistics advisory boards of GSK and Astrazeneca, on the Methodology Advisory Board of the UK’s Office for National Statistics, and as Chief Scientific Advisor to Winton Capital Management. He has written over 300 scientific papers, has authored/co-authored 15 books, including Measurement Theory and Practice and The World Through Quantification and Statistics: A Very Short Introduction, and edited 11 others. He is well-known for his research in classification, data mining, and consumer credit scoring. He has served twice as president of the Royal Statistical Society.