Well-being expressed as changes in life satisfaction
There are different ways to measure wellbeing, including 'evaluative wellbeing'. One of the measures or indicators of evaluative wellbeing used is life satisfaction, which is used by the OECD, among others. While many other wellbeing measures capture specific types of wellbeing (e.g. mental wellbeing, emotional wellbeing), life satisfaction captures overall human wellbeing.
One question: "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life at the moment?"
The life satisfaction question used in the OSVB is measured with a single question: "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life at the moment?" answered on a scale from 0 (not at all satisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied). It's easy to collect, easy to answer and easy to interpret. It is one of the most widely used wellbeing measures in the world and has been collected for millions of respondents in almost every country in the world, starting more than fifty years ago.
WELLBY and monetization: Two steps to social valuation
Step 1 is about ensuring a robust (and causal) link between concrete social parameters and subjective well-being (here captured by life satisfaction). Step 2 is about the monetization of subjective well-being (again captured by life satisfaction), and involves translating the identified well-being effects into something monetary (captured by income).
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