IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v118y2014i2p797-818.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Harmony in the World 2013: The Ideal and the Reality

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Bell
  • Yingchuan Mo

Abstract

Many global indicators rank countries according to valued goods such as freedom, wealth, or happiness, but they all share the same flaw: they neglect the importance of rich and diverse social relations for human well-being. The Harmony Index (HI) is an effort to remedy this flaw. It measures four types of relations that matter for human well-being. The HI attempts to measure the extent of peaceful order and respect for diversity—what Confucian thinkers call harmony—within each relation, and ranks countries according to the score for overall harmony. This inaugural HI made use of comprehensive and reliable comparative data for 27 countries. Our findings show that small and relatively wealthy countries tend to be more harmonious countries. Compared to other leading global indices, however, the Harmony Index is less influenced by gross domestic product per capita and by the extent of democracy in a country. Population has a greater impact on harmony than either wealth or political system. We constructed another HI with fewer measurements for family well-being but covering a broader range of countries. A chart with 43 countries demonstrates that it is possible to achieve a high score on the HI without a high level of wealth or democracy. A detailed breakdown of the findings allows us to draw some tentative policy implications at the end of the report. Establishing and nourishing harmonious social relations and a non-destructive approach to the environment is a goal shared by most of the world’s cultures, ethical systems, and religions, and a harmony index can and should be used as a key indicator of social progress and regress. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Bell & Yingchuan Mo, 2014. "Harmony in the World 2013: The Ideal and the Reality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 797-818, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:118:y:2014:i:2:p:797-818
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0439-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-013-0439-z
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-013-0439-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank & the People’s Republic of China Development Research Center of the State Council, 2013. "China 2030 : Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12925.
    2. Sagar, Ambuj D. & Najam, Adil, 1998. "The human development index: a critical review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 249-264, June.
    3. Simon Ho & Raymond Chan, 2009. "Social Harmony in Hong Kong: Level, Determinants and Policy Implications," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 37-58, March.
    4. Ian Morris, 2013. "The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9830.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. O. Kjell & D. Daukantaitė & K. Hefferon & S. Sikström, 2016. "The Harmony in Life Scale Complements the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Expanding the Conceptualization of the Cognitive Component of Subjective Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 893-919, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jeni Klugman & Francisco Rodríguez & Hyung-Jin Choi, 2011. "The HDI 2010: new controversies, old critiques," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 249-288, June.
    2. Rui Fragoso & Vladimir Bushenkov & Carlos Marques, 2012. "Integrated Water Management Using Feasible Goals Method and Interactive Decision Maps: The Case of Odivelas Irrigation," CEFAGE-UE Working Papers 2012_07, University of Evora, CEFAGE-UE (Portugal).
    3. Murach, Michael & Wagner, Helmut & Kim, Jungsuk & Park, Donghyun, 2022. "Trajectories to high income: Comparing the growth dynamics in China, South Korea, and Japan with cointegrated VAR models," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 492-511.
    4. Albino Prada-Blanco & Patricio Sanchez-Fernandez, 2017. "Empirical Analysis of the Transformation of Economic Growth into Social Development at an International Level," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 983-1003, February.
    5. Christoph Dörffel & Sebastian Schuhmann, 2020. "What is Inclusive Development? Introducing the Multidimensional Inclusiveness Index," Jena Economics Research Papers 2020-015, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    6. Aleksandra Maksimovska & Aleksandar Stojkov, 2019. "Composite Indicator of Social Responsiveness of Local Governments: An Empirical Mapping of the Networked Community Governance Paradigm," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 669-706, July.
    7. Davide Fiaschi & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Angela Parenti, 2020. "Deep and Proximate Determinants of the World Income Distribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(3), pages 677-710, September.
    8. Chris Tofallis, 2013. "An automatic-democratic approach to weight setting for the new human development index," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1325-1345, October.
    9. Sarmiza Pencea & Iulia Monica Oehler-Sincai, 2015. "Investment-Led Development In China – From Past Accomplishments, To Future Challenges," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University, vol. 10(2), pages 87-102, June.
    10. Popov, Vladimir, 2015. "Разрыв Между Югом И Западом По Уровню Экономического Развития Сокращается? [Catching up: Developing countries in pursuit of growth]," MPRA Paper 65893, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Robert Stewart & Murshed Chowdhury & Vaalmikki Arjoon, 2021. "Bank stability and economic growth: trade-offs or opportunities?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 827-853, August.
    12. Kakali Mukhopadhyay & Paul J. Thomassin & Jingyuan Zhang, 2018. "Food security in China at 2050: a global CGE exercise," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 7(1), pages 1-29, December.
    13. Chau-kiu Cheung & Stephen Ma, 2011. "Coupling Social Solidarity and Social Harmony in Hong Kong," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 103(1), pages 145-167, August.
    14. Massimo Buscema & Pier Luigi Sacco & Guido Ferilli, 2016. "Multidimensional Similarities at a Global Scale: An Approach to Mapping Open Society Orientations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 1239-1258, September.
    15. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2021. "Augmented human development in the age of globalization," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(4), pages 946-975, November.
    16. Xin Wang & Man Ping Wang & Kasisomayajula Viswanath & Alice Wan & Tai Hing Lam & Sophia S Chan, 2016. "Smoking and Secondhand Smoke Exposure at Home Were Associated with Poor Perceived Family Well-Being: Findings of FAMILY Project," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-10, August.
    17. Ülengin, Füsun & Kabak, Özgür & Önsel, Sule & Aktas, Emel & Parker, Barnett R., 2011. "The competitiveness of nations and implications for human development," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 16-27, March.
    18. Elizabeth Stanton, 2007. "The Human Development Index: A History," Working Papers wp127, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    19. Blair Fix, 2019. "Energy, hierarchy and the origin of inequality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-32, April.
    20. mashkoor, Aasim & ahmed, Ovais, 2015. "Theory of Economic Development (Pyramids of Economic Development)," MPRA Paper 63370, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:118:y:2014:i:2:p:797-818. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.