The economics of the satisfaction of needs
This paper is a proposal for the development of an econ­ omics that would be based on satisfaction of the unvarying and universal human needs and not of desires or wants, which are easily manipulable and change, not only from one society to another, but also from one individual to another and even for the same individual at different moments of his or her life. This economics would deal with the production, distribu tion, and use or consumption of all those entities goods, services, relations, self-expressions - that satisfy human needs. It is suggested that in order to achieve stability in social and economic growth, all needs should be simultaneously satisfied, not only the so-called basic needs - food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education. It is claimed that tech­ nological development is making this proposal possible, parti­ cularly because the satisfaction of most of the psychological and sociocultural needs relies mainly on gratuitous relations
Assessing Well-being Using Hierarchical Needs
Determining whether well-being has improved is an important multidisciplinary task. It is important therefore to develop a multidimensional measure of well-being that reflects a wide spectrum of human needs. A new approach is presented in this paper based on multidimensional hierarchical human needs and motivation. Improving well-being within this multidimensional approach requires progressive satiation of hierarchical needs. Eight indicators have been chosen to reflect these four hierarchical categories. This paper empirically applies this new measure of well-being to eight Southeast Asian countries for the period 1985-2000: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Results for Australia are also provided as a comparative benchmark.[Research Paper No. 2005/22]
The Use of Qualitative Information in Macro-Economic Policy Analysis
The majority of macro-economic policy models takes for granted that conflicts among objectives can be assessed by means of a tradeoff analysis. Such tradeoffs imply that sacrifices and benefits of various impacts of decisions can be measured on a cardinal scale, so that a conventional macro-economic utility or welfare analysis can be applied.