1. HM Treasury (2022).
2. OECD (2018).
3 Waldron (2010).
4. Fujiwara & Campbell (2011).
This section gives more detail about the twenty shortlisted outcomes. In particular, it gives a general description, the survey question uses to elicit the value (and to attribute the value), as well as the data set used to derive it. Throughout, one asterisk (*) id used to define the negative answer category and two asterisks (**) are used to define the positive answer category. The value should apply to all individuals moving from * to **.
This outcome captures the value of moving from unemployment to part-time employment, where part-time employment is defined as working less than 28 hours per week.
The outcome was estimated using two questions from Understanding Society, one of which asks respondents to describe their current employment situation and another which asks respondents how many hours they work each week. For simplicity, we have combined these survey questions into the following:
Which of these best describes your current employment situation?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
It should be noted that the value is based on responses from individuals aged 16 and over.
This outcome captures the value of moving from having a relatively poor relationship with your partner (β€7 on a 0-10 scale) to having a good relationship with your partner (8+ on a 0-10 scale).
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following question:
How satisfied are you with your relationship with your partner?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from being advised to take medication for diabetes to not having to take medication for diabetes.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
Has a doctor or other health professional ever told you that you suffer from diabetes?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
Note that respondents who answer 'Yes' to this question cannot switch to 'No'. Because of this, we recommend the use of the following question to attribute the wellbeing value of diabetes to individuals:
Does your doctor currently advise that you take medication for diabetes?
This outcome captures the value of moving from not walking/cycling short journeys to walking/cycling short journeys, where a short journey is defined as less that 2 or 3 miles.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
How often do you personally walk or cycle for short journeys less than 2 or 3 miles?
Never*Afixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 10% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from having used illegal drugs in the past year to not having taken illegal drugs in the past year.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
In the past year, how many times have you used or taken any illegal drugs?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from homelessness (defined as sleeping rough, sleeping in a vehicle or squatting) to temporary accommodation (defined as a hostel, hotel, crisis accommodation or rehabilitation centre5).
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Journeys Home, where respondents must answer the following question:
As of today, in what kind of place do you live?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from losing confidence in oneself more than usual to not losing confidence in oneself any more than usual.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
Have you recently been losing confidence in yourself?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from having a poor sleep quality to having a good sleep quality.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following question:
During the past month, how would you rate your sleep quality overall?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of a young person reducing their conduct problems from a score of 10 or over to a score of 9 or under (if the survey is self-completed) or from a score of 10 or over to a score of 8 or under (if the survey is not self-completed).
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society's youth questionnaire, where respondents must answer the following questions:
For each item, please indicate whether the statement is Not True, Somewhat True or Certainly True as best you can. Please give your answers on the basis of how things have been for you over the last six months.
I get very angry and often lose my temper
I usually do as I am told
I fight a lot. I can make other people do what I want
I am often accused of lying or cheating
I take things that are not mine from home, school or elsewhere
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of a young person moving from eating no/few fruit and veg per day to having at least 2-4 portions.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society's youth questionnaire, where respondents must answer the following question:
How many portions of fresh fruit or vegetables do you eat on a typical day? One portion is one piece of fruit or one serving of a vegetable or salad item.
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 5% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of a young person moving from drinking alcohol at least once in the past four weeks to not having drank alcohol in the past four weeks.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society's youth questionnaire, where respondents must answer the following question:
How many times in the last four weeks have you had an alcoholic drink? That is a whole drink, not just a sip.
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 5% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of a young person improving their attitude in school from a score of 17 or lower to a score of 18 or over.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from the Millennium Cohort Study, where respondents must answer the following questions:
How often do you try your best at school?
How often do you find school interesting?
How often do you feel unhappy at school?
How often do you get tired at school?
How often do you feel school is a waste of time?
How often do you find it difficult to keep your mind on your work at school?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of a young person increasing their self-esteem by a certain amount.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society's youth questionnaire, where respondents must answer the following question:
For the following list of statements, do you Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree or Strongly Disagree?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not undertaking unpaid voluntary work to volunteering at least once per year.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from the British Household Panel Survey, where respondents must answer the following question:
How often do you do unpaid voluntary work?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
Note that the British Household Panel Survey was used to estimate this value. This data set was superseded by Understanding Society in 2009, meaning the data is quite dated. However, we feel that this should not have a significant detrimental impact on the reliability of the estimated value since the relationship between voluntary work and life satisfaction likely hasn't changed much in fifteen years.
This outcome captures the value of moving from doing a little/no sport (0-2 on a 0-10 scale) to doing an intense amount of sport (5+ on a 0-10 scale).
β
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being 'doing no sport at all' to 10 being 'very active through sport', where would you rank yourself?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
Note that since this outcome uses the same survey question as 2.16 below, these two outcomes cannot be attributed to the same individual.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not doing any sport (0 on a 0-10 scale) to doing at least some sport (1+ on a 0-10 scale).
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being 'doing no sport at all' to 10 being 'very active through sport', where would you rank yourself?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
Note that since this outcome uses the same survey question as 2.15 above, these two outcomes cannot be attributed to the same individual.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not having participated/been in the audience of an arts event to having participated/been in the audience of an arts event at least once in the past 12 months.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
How often in the past 12 months have you done/attended any cultural activities such as music, dance, art, drama, crafts, creative writing, cinema or reading for pleasure? Please only include events done/attended in your own time or for the purpose of voluntary work.
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 10% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from having been behind with rent/mortgage in the past 12 months to not having been behind with rent/mortgage in the past 12 months.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
Many people find it hard to keep up with their housing payments. In the past twelve months, have you ever found yourself behind with your rent/mortgage?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from having low trust in others (<4 on a 1-7 scale) to having trust in others (4+ on a 1-7 scale).
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following question:
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: Generally speaking, most people can be trusted.
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not feeling in control of life (<5 on a 1-7 scale) to feeling in control of life (5+ on a 1-7 scale).
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following question:
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: I can do just about anything I really set my mind to do.
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from unemployment to full-time employment, where full-time employment is defined as working at least 28 hours per week.
The outcome was estimated using two questions from Understanding Society, one of which asks respondents to describe their current employment situation and another which asks respondents how many hours they work each week. For simplicity, we have combined these survey questions into the following:
Which of these best describes your current employment situation?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
It should be noted that the value is based on responses from individuals aged 16 and over. Note also that the value of this outcome is lower than that of 'Part-time employment'. However, since income is controlled for in the model, the values represents the impact on becoming employed holding income constant. In other words, it only represents the wellbeing impact on employment, not the monetary impact. Therefore, we feel that this finding is not of concern.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not feeling satisfied with how safe you feel (<6 on a 0-10 scale) to feeling satisfied with how safe you feel (6+ on a 0-10 scale).
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following question:
On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being 'Totally dissatisfied' to 10 being 'Totally satisfied', how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with how safe you feel?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from having 'Fair' or 'Poor' self-reported health to having at least a 'Good' level of self-reported health.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following question:
In general, would you say your health is:
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from feeling lonely 'Often' to 'Some of the time'.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
How often do you feel lonely?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of a parent moving from feeling stressed from meeting the needs of their children (4+ on a 1-7 scale for either of the below questions) to not feeling stressed from meeting the needs of their children (β€3 on a 1-7 scale for both of the below questions).
The key variable of interest uses survey questions from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following questions:
How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
I often feel tired, worn out or exhausted from meeting the needs of my children
I find that taking care of my children is much more work than pleasure
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from being obese to being of normal weight, as defined by body mass index (BMI).
The key variable of interest uses a variable derived from individuals' weight and height metrics from HILDA. We proposed the following question to attribute this outcome to respondents:
What is your body mass index (BMI)? Your BMI can be calculated by dividing your body weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters.
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not definitely agreeing that there are people who are there for them for all three of the below questions to definitely agreeing that there are people who are there for them for at least one of the below questions.
The key variable of interest uses survey questions from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following questions:
How much can you rely on your friends if you have a serious problem?
How much can you rely on your immediate family if you have a serious problem?
How much can you rely on your partner if you have a serious problem?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not having graduated high school to having graduated high school or graduated from university/college or attained a post-graduate degree.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from Understanding Society, where respondents must answer the following question:
What is the highest educational or school qualification you have obtained?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 10% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not being able to be independent at all/independent in a few things to being independent in many things/completely independent.
The key variable of interest uses survey questions from Understanding Society. For simplicity, we have combined some of the questions in order to not overburden respondents.
The next few questions are about tasks that some people may need help with and about help that you may have received in the last month. Please think only about help you need because of long-term physical or mental ill-health, disability or problems relating to old age.
Do you manage to dress or undress, including putting on shoes and socks...
Do you manage to do routine housework or laundry...
Do you manage to shop for food, including getting to the shops, choosing the items, carrying the items home and then unpacking and putting the items away...
Do you manage to take the right amount of medicine at the right times...
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from suffering from depression/anxiety to not suffering from depression/anxiety.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from the British Household Panel Survey, where respondents must answer the following question:
Do you suffer from anxiety, depression or bad nerves, psychiatric problems?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from talking to their neighbours 'Sometimes' or fewer to talking to their neighbours 'Often' or 'Very often'.
The key variable of interest uses a survey question from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following question:
In general, how often do you chat with your neighbours?
An OLS regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
This outcome captures the value of moving from not being a member of a social group/not attending events to being a member of a social group/attending events.
The key variable of interest uses survey questions from HILDA, where respondents must answer the following questions:
Are you currently an active member of a sporting, hobby or community-based club or association?
In general, how often do you attend events that bring people together such as fetes, shows, festivals or other community events?
A fixed-effects regression was used to elicit this value. It is statistically significant at the 1% confidence level.
5. Prison or other form of detention" was also defined as temporary accommodation in the original survey question. However, since this raises ethical questions around whether being in prison is better for your wellbeing that being homeless, we have decided to drop this answer category. Since the proportion of respondents choosing this answer option is low, we deem this to have little detrimental impact on the reliability of attribution.
Fujiwara, D. and Campbell, R. (2011). Valuation Techniques for Social Cost-Benefit Analysis: Stated Preference, Revealed Preference and Subjective Well-Being Approaches. Department for Work and Pensions. Available here.
HM Treasury (2022). The Green Book - Central Government Guidance on Appraisal and Evaluation. Available here.
OECD (2018). Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment - Further Developments and Policy Use. Available here.
Waldron, S. (2010). Measuring Subjective Wellbeing in the UK. Office for National Statistics. Available here.
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1. the estimates in (2) are causal, but they do not in themselves show the effect that income and the social parameters have on quality of life, but rather the effect that respondents believe income and the social parameters have on quality of life. In other words, the causal estimates are scaled. By using MRS to value the social parameters, where we divide the coefficient for a social parameter by the coefficient for income, we overcome this challenge under the assumption that the scaling factor is constant across the parameters of the model.
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A number of social and health issues can be prevented or alleviated with targeted loneliness initiatives that increase the wellbeing of the citizen and reduce social and health care costs. In Denmark, there are an estimated 600,000 lonely citizens, which has a large economic burden. The cost of health and care, extra early retirement pensions and lost production due to sick leave alone is estimated to cost society DKK 7.4 billion annually, while the well-being cost for the 600,000 lonely citizens is estimated to be DKK 13.5 billion.
The initiative aims to treat lonely adults through internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (psychological treatment). The initiative lasts 8 weeks, costs a total of DKK 400,000 and has a total of 73 participants. It is estimated that the target group can achieve an effect size of 4.65 measured on the UCLA-20 scale.
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The Job Satisfaction Knowledge Center collects representative data on Danes' job satisfaction through their GAI survey. Job satisfaction is measured on a scale from 0-100, as an average of three questions that shed light on the individual's job satisfaction. In a series of reports, in collaboration with Kraka Advisory, they present calculations on the value of increasing job satisfaction among employees in Danish companies. Consequences of low job satisfaction include higher sick leave, higher likelihood of job change, earlier retirement and lower life satisfaction.
The report shows a fictitious example of how the value of life satisfaction can be used in a socio-economic analysis of the value of an initiative. The calculations are based on a fictitious company's efforts to increase job satisfaction among their employees. The estimates are calculated on the basis of socio-economic values from the Job Satisfaction Knowledge Center and Kraka Advisory's reports and OSVB's value for changes in life satisfaction. To accommodate uncertainties, the potential benefit of increased job satisfaction for employee wellbeing is presented in a range of +/- 15% of the OSVB's value for life satisfaction.
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