Measuring economic ill-being: Evidence for the ‘Philippine Misery Index’

Beja, Edsel (2014): Measuring economic ill-being: Evidence for the ‘Philippine Misery Index’.

Abstract

This paper uses the gap between the level of an economy’s well-being and that of a people’s well-being as a measure of the overall economic ill-being in a society. In particular, it argues that such disparity is measurable using objective measures of and subjective measures for inflation and joblessness. The inflation rate in this regard signifies the affordability of goods and services; its subjective counterpart then indicates the sense of whether the people can actually afford goods and services or not. The joblessness rate meanwhile shows the extent to which there is no gainful employment; its subjective counterpart then represents the sense of being jobless as understood by the people. The results indicate that the overall economic ill-being in the Philippines did not change much even with robust economic growth in recent years. This finding unveils a scene that is different from that painted by official statistics from the country.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Economic ill-being; well-being; misery index, Philippines
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C4 - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics > C43 - Index Numbers and Aggregation; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D60 - General; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E24 - Employment ; Unemployment ; Wages ; Intergenerational Income Distribution ; Aggregate Human Capital ; Aggregate Labor Productivity; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E31 - Price Level ; Inflation ; Deflation; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook > E66 - General Outlook and Conditions; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty > I31 - General Welfare, Well-Being

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