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Amazonian and Andean native conceptions of well-being is referred to as different well-being patterns found in traditional communities in the Cordillera of the Andes and the Amazonian rainforest. The adaptation to modernity of these cultures and its impact in well-being is also discussed.

The 2013 Human Development Report is the latest in the series of global Human Development Reports published by UNDP since 1990 as independent, empirically grounded analyses of major development issues, trends and policies.

Additional resources related to the 2013 Human Development Report can be found online at http://hdr.undp.org, including complete editions or summaries of the Report in more than 20 languages, a collection of Human Development Research Papers commissioned for the 2013 Report, interactive maps and databases of national human development indicators, full explanations of the sources and methodologies employed in the Report’s human development indices, country profiles and other background materials as well as previous global, regional and national Human Development Reports.

Maslow’s hierarchy-of-needstheoryis used to predict development of Quality of Life (QOL) in countries over time. Previous data sets have not had sufficient power to test these development trends among countries. Therefore a new database was developed that includes annual quality of life time-series for 88 countries from 1960 to 1994, covering measures on all five of Maslow’s need-levels. Results showed significant agreement with some of Maslow’s predictions, including his sequence of need achievement, and parts of an S-shaped trajectory in QOL. However, his mechanism of growth – that countries must slow growth in one area to increase growth in another – was disconfirmed.

A number of governments and public policy institutes have developed “Quality of Life Indexes” – statistics that attempt to measure the quality of life for entire states or regions. We develop 14 criteria for determining the validity and usefulness of such QOL indexes to public policy. We then review 22 of the most-used QOL indexes from around the world. We conclude that many of the indexes are successful in that they are reliable, have established time series measures, and can be disaggregated to study subpopulations. However, many fall short in four areas: (1) indexes vary greatly in their coverage and definitions of domains of QOL, (2) none of the indexes distinguish among the concepts of input, throughput, and output that are used by public policy analysts, (3) they fail to show how QOL outputs are sensitive to public policy inputs, and (4) none have examined convergent validity against each other. We conclude that many of these indexes are potentially very useful for public policy and recommend research to further improve them.

These guidelines provide advice on the collection and use of measures of subjective well-being. They are intended to provide support for national statistical offices and other producers of subjective well-being data in designing, collecting, and publishing measures of subjective well-being. In addition, the guidelines are designed to be of value to users of information on subjective well-being.

The guidelines provide information on the validity of subjective well-being measures; discuss the main methodological issues in developing questions to collect information on subjective well-being; present best practice in the measurement of subjective well-being; and provide guidance on the analysis and reporting of subjective well-being measures. A number of prototype question modules relating to different aspects of subjective well-being are also included.

These guidelines should be viewed as providing advice on best practice rather than being a formal statistical standard. At present, countries differ in terms of how much interest they have in information on subjective well-being, and in terms of the ability of national statistical offices to collect such data. The role of the guidelines, therefore, is primarily to assist data producers in meeting the needs of users by bringing together what is currently known on how to produce high quality, comparable measures of subjective well-being. As an international governmental organisation, the OECD has a particular interest in encouraging international comparability of data, and this is one of the key objectives of this report.

Buen Vivir or Vivir Bien, are the Spanish words used in Latin America to describe alternatives to development focused on the good life in a broad sense. The term is actively used by social movements, and it has become a popular term in some government programs and has even reached its way into two new Constitutions in Ecuador and Bolivia.

It is a plural concept with two main entry points. On the one hand, it includes critical reactions to classical Western development theory. On the other hand, it refers to alternatives to development emerging from indigenous traditions, and in this sense the concept explores possibilities beyond the modern Eurocentric tradition.

The richness of the term is difficult to translate into English. It includes the classical ideas of quality of life, but with the specific idea that well-being is only possible within a community. Furthermore, in most approaches the community concept is understood in an expanded sense, to include Nature. Buen Vivir therefore embraces the broad notion of well-being and cohabitation with others and Nature. In this regard, the concept is also plural, as there are many different interpretations depending on cultural, historical and ecological setting.

This is the ninth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks the nations of the world according to their level of peacefulness. The index is composed of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources and ranks 162 independent states, covering 99.6 per cent of the world’s population. The index gauges global peace using three broad themes: the level of safety and security in society, the extent of domestic and international conflict and the degree of militarisation.

This report, the second in a series, shows the well-being of our nation’s 100 largest communities, as measured by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index®, which captures how people feel about and experience their daily lives. Well-being is correlated with healthcare utilization and cost as well as productivity measures like absenteeism, presenteeism and job performance — all critical to organizational and economic competitiveness.

Nation-states (hereafter “nations,” “countries,” or “states”) are internationally autonomous political entities that are bound together by a system of laws, a defi ned (but not necessarily contiguous) geographic space, and a commitment to the pursuit of the collective well-being of their inhabitants. 1 Though quite diverse in geographic size, population characteristics, type of polity, and economic system, nations share a variety of features common with one another (Britannica Online 2011a; Moran et al. 2006; Weingast and Wittman 2006). Rank ordered more or less in terms of their importance, they include (1) recognition of their political sovereignty by other nations; (2) a coherent set of principles that guide their interactions with other sovereign states; (3) secure physical borders; (4) the administration of justice within a system of laws to which, optimally, the governed have assented (e.g., via a written constitution and an independent judiciary); (5) the provision of a range of “public goods” designed to meet the collective needs of their populations (e.g., the creation of monetary and banking systems, road-building and other transportation networks, the development of communications infrastructure, and the provision of at least limited health, education, and related human services) 2 ; (6) special initiatives designed to meet the income security and related needs of their most vulnerable inhabitants (e.g., children, the elderly, persons with chronic illnesses or disabilities, unemployed persons, etc.); and (7) a commitment to promotion of the general well-being of the society-as-a-whole (Kim et al. 2010 ; Plato 2000 ; Sachs 2005 ; Schyns and Koop 2010) . In democratic societies, states also carry responsibility for the conduct of fair and open elections and for the promotion of a broad range of civil liberties and political freedoms – all of which are considered necessary elements in the functioning of pluralistic, participatory, societies (Freedom House 2010 ; Human Rights Watch 2010; Tsai 2006) .

“Economies in Transition” (hereafter referred to as “EITs”) consist of 31 geographically dispersed nations (International Monetary Fund 2010) with a combined population of 1,916 million—approximately 27.8% of the world’s total in 2010 (UNPOP 2010) . EITs are located in East and Southeast Asia (N = 4), Central and Eastern Europe (N = 10), and Central Asia (N = 11). They also include China, Turkey, the Russian Federation, and the three Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Other countries are regarded as EITs, but the challenges associated with their development have tended to be longer in duration (e.g., Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Mexico, among others). The majority of countries classifi ed as EITs in this study are relatively young—most having achieved their independence only since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in December 1991. The social, political, and economic transitions for some of the study’s EITs began earlier than 1991, but owing to their long histories, large geographic territories, and current political complexities, their transition process has moved more slowly, i.e., the Russian Federation (1917), Turkey (1923), and China (1949).