Beyond Facts - Understanding Quality of Life
Eduardo Lora, Coordinator
Inter-American Development Bank, Co-published by
Available online [286p.] at: http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=1775002
“……Everybody seeks a better quality of life, although few people are able to define with precision the objective of their quest. If the key to a good quality of life were simply to have a good income, governments could concentrate their efforts on economic growth and ignore what people need for personal development and what society needs to achieve the public good. Reality, however, is quite different. In any democratic society, governments and the political systems that include them are judged not only by the quality of macroeconomic results, but also by their capacity to interpret and respond to the demands of the electorate on the most varied of fronts, ranging from national security to access to justice, and from the delivery of public utility services to the operation of hospitals and schools. A few basic economic and social statistics and a good dose of intuition to interpret public opinion and the actions of politicians are generally the main sources of information available to government leaders in making judgments and decisions….”
“…….Along with offering policy recommendations for each issue analyzed, this study also draws attention to the effects that perceptions can have on political processes and on public decision making. The beliefs and the perception and interpretation biases of both the electorate and politicians and government leaders exert considerable influence on the supply and demand of public policies. Information possessed by various actors in the political process can affect (in ways that are not always consistent) the perceptions of issues among the different players, which in turn affect the policy discussion, formulation, and implementation process. On those bases, strategies are proposed herein to reduce the information gap and the influence of perception biases so that the public debate may involve better options for producing policies that contribute to improving the quality of life….”
Content
PART I SETTING THE STAGE
Chapter 1 Quality of Life Viewed through Another Lens.
Chapter 2 The Personality of Quality of Life Perceptions.
Chapter 3 The Conflictive Relationship between Income and Satisfaction.
Chapter 4 Satisfaction beyond Income. . . . . . . . . .
PART II FACTS AND PERCEPTIONS IN ACTION
Chapter 5 Getting a Pulse on Health Quality.
Chapter 6 Learning about Education Quality and Perceptions . .
Chapter 7 Rethinking Conventional Wisdom on Job Quality.
Chapter 8 Urban Quality of Life: More Than Bricks and Mortar .
PART III THE CURTAIN CALL
Chapter 9 The People’s Choice? The Role of Opinions in the Policymaking Process
References.
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