▪ Abstract Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.

/pdf/on-happiness-and-human-potentials-a-review-of-research-on-1t2vu3ifq9.pdf

On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61690-6.pdf

Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

/pdf/agricultural-sustainability-and-intensive-production-1h98l920tu.pdf

Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices

We review in detail a number of approaches that have been adopted to try and explain the remarkable observation of our accelerating universe. In particular we discuss the arguments for and recent progress made towards understanding the nature of dark energy. We review the observational evidence for the current accelerated expansion of the universe and present a number of dark energy models in addition to the conventional cosmological constant, paying particular attention to scalar field models such as quintessence, K-essence, tachyon, phantom and dilatonic models. The importance of cosmological scaling solutions is emphasized when studying the dynamical system of scalar fields including coupled dark energy. We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations allowing us to confront them with the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure and demonstrate how it is possible in principle to reconstruct the equation of state of dark energy by also using Supernovae Ia observational data. We also discuss in detail the nature of tracking solutions in cosmology, particle physics and braneworld models of dark energy, the nature of possible future singularities, the effect of higher order curvature terms to avoid a Big Rip singularity, and approaches to modifying gravity which leads to a late-time accelerated expansion without recourse to a new form of dark energy.

Dynamics of dark energy

Investing in Early Childhood: Its Role in Development

Shakespeare did not say it, but it is true that some men are born small, some achieve smallness, and some have smallness thrust upon them. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, has had to cope with a good deal of such thrusting. That conclusion is inescapable, reading some of the recent pronouncements of conservative extremism (especially in Britain), with persistent attempts to implicate Adam Smith in justifying the straight and the narrow. The invoking of Adam Smith and ‘the invisible hand’ is a widespread phenomenon, varying from explicit attribution to implicit use of Smith’s authority (in, say, the spirited outpourings of the so-called ‘Adam Smith Institute’).

Adam Smith’s Prudence

En este articulo se examinan las cuatro caracteristicas del concepto de «trabajo decente» que son esenciales para la consecucion de este objetivo de la OIT en el marco de la mundializacion. En primer lugar, se parte de un planteamiento integral, que no se limita a una o varias categorias de trabajadores; aun cuando choca contra ciertos conflictos de intereses muy palpables, el propio enfoque integral hace posible vencer los escollos en aras de la universalidad. La segunda caracteristica es el pensamiento basado en los derechos: los derechos fundamentales son validos de por si, es decir, antes incluso de que logren reconocimiento juridico. La tercera consiste en situar al trabajo en un contexto economico, politico y social general que promocione los valores democraticos. La cuarta y ultima estriba en sustituir la perspectiva internacional por otra de caracter mundial, universal.

Trabajo y derechos

On the Development of Basic Economic Indicators to Supplement GNP Measures

Professors Hillinger and Lapham's critique of my theorem on the impossibility of combining Conditions P (Pareto principle), L (liberalism), and U (unrestricted domain) does not question the validity of the theorem but denies that my definition of Condition L corresponds to the correct notion of liberalism. When writing my paper, I was afraid of definitional disputes, and after claiming that "Condition L represents a value involving individual liberty that many people would subscribe to" (a sentence that Hillinger and Lapham quote), I added that "whether such people are best described as liberals is a question that is not crucial to the point of the paper" (a sentence that they do not quote). However, while the validity of the theorem is not in dispute, its practical importance will depend on the exact interpretation of liberalism; and, hence, Hillinger and Lapham are within their rights to question my definition of Condition L. The alternative interpretation of liberalism on which Hillinger and Lapham (henceforth, HL) base their paper, and which they claim to be "the only generally accepted principle of liberalism," is nowhere precisely defined by HL. It is only "broadly defined" (to quote their expression) in highly general terms, but they do spell out its implications fairly precisely.' It appears from their definition that, whenever interpersonal interdependences are present, the principle of liberalism would not assert anything. "Whenever the choices of one individual impinge on the welfare of others there is no general presumption in favour of freedom of individual choice," and HL "are aware of no relatively value free principle of liberalism which could decide the issue in such a case" (p. 2).2 Liberalism, on this interpretation, would seem to demand freedom of individual action only when a person's action is not opposed by anyone else. It is clear why the principle of liberalism, thus defined, will not conflict with the Pareto principle: because it does not demand anything that the

/pdf/the-impossibility-of-a-paretian-liberal-reply-9viwh5g1py.pdf

Amartya Sen

Papers

Investing in Early Childhood: Its Role in Development

Adam Smith’s Prudence

Trabajo y derechos

On the Development of Basic Economic Indicators to Supplement GNP Measures

The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal: Reply