The well-known s-shaped diffusion of technology curve generally works well in developed countries. But how does it perform in the very different context of developing countries? Across a wide range of new technologies imported from the developed countries it works poorly. In most cases the penetration rate fails to reach 25% of the population. The…

The subjective well-being approach to environmental valuation is applied to analyze the valuation of greenhouse gas emissions with a fairness-adjustment in the valuation exercise. Results indicate that industrialized countries have high willingness-to-pay to reduce emissions. Developing countries differ in their valuations. Results indicate that…

This paper investigates ten Asian nations to consider how socio-economic values affect happiness and satisfaction. Moreover, it considers whether economic factors can strongly affect wellbeing under certain conditions. Males in Asia are said they have more opportunities to obtain higher happiness and satisfaction but it does not happen in the…

The paper explores attitudes to chronic poverty in a cross-section of developed and developing countries contributing data to the World Values Survey Wave Three (1994-1998). The analysis finds a consistent belief among a majority of respondents that poverty is persistent. The paper also explores the factors influencing public attitudes to chronic…

The theoretical analysis of the concepts of social capital and of social cohesion shows that social capital should be considered as a micro concept whereas social cohesion, being a broader concept than social capital, is a more appropriate concept for macro analysis. Therefore, we suggest that data on the individual level should only be used to…

This paper shows that the partisan composition of government is strongly related to the well-being of citizens, measured by the reported level of life satisfaction and suicide rates in industrial countries. Our analysis, using survey data of 14 nations between 1980 and 2002, shows that the presence of left-leaning parties in government is…

Discovering whether social capital endowments in modern societies have been subjected or not to a process of gradual erosion is one of the most debated topics in recent economic literature. Inaugurated by Putnam's pioneering studies, the debate on social capital trends has been recently revived by Stevenson and Wolfers (2008) contending…

The subjective well-being approach to the valuation of international development is applied to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Results indicate that the rich countries have particular preference for education, healthcare, and housing; they are willing to accept compensation for a failure to meet the three targets by 2015. The poor…

This study critically investigates the suitability of United Nations' composite indices and other related measures--among which the Gender Inequality Index just released in 2010--to capture gender inequalities in the context of "highly developed" countries, focusing on the case of Europe. Our results indicate that many of the gender gaps…

While a growing literature demonstrates the impact of socio-political factors on citizens' quality of life, scholars have paid comparatively little attention to the role political organizations such as labor unions play in this regard. We examine labor organization as a determinant of cross-national variation in life satisfaction across a sample…

One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that is does not take into account inequality within countries in its three dimensions. In this paper, we apply a simply approach to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows a comparison of the level in human development of the poor with…

This explores the reasons that paid work time may be rising, at least in anglophone countries. Three explanations are discussed. (1) An historical reversal of the work/leisure gradient with respect to social position or social status. This gradient was once positive, but is now negative; evidence of this change from 11 developed countries is drawn…

This paper focuses on three main subjects: (1) monitoring quality of life (QoL) in old age; (2) international and interdisciplinary collaboration for QoL research; and (3) computer-based technology and infrastructure assisting (1) and (2). This type of computer-supported cooperative work in the social sciences has been termed eHumanities or…

It is of paramount concern for economists to uncover the factors that determine economic growth and social development. In recent years a new field of investigation has come to the fore in which social capital is analysed in order to determine its effect on economic growth. Along these lines the work presented here examines the relationships that…

The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of various compositions of human capital on economic growth. We construct alternative measures of human capital composition using five fields of study. In each instance, the measure represents the number of graduates in the respective field as a percentage of all graduates. The measures are as…