The use of well-being studies for the comparison of societies and the evaluation
of alternative policiesisstill in itsinfancy. The firmest recommendation isthusfor
better data and more research. Some researchers of well-being have argued that it
is not too soon to think of constructing national well-being indexes to supplement
and improve the available measures used for cross-national comparisons (Diener,
2000). In a sense, this is what the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
hasalready done with itsmeasuresof the quality of life, and what othershave done
to develop broader measures of economic well-being (Osberg and Sharpe, 2001).
The availability of large samples of well-being data offer the prospect of much
stronger empirical grounding for attempts to devise measures and comparisons of
well-being, and to compare alternative policiesintended to improve well-being.
One of the particular branches of social science that has much to gain from
systematic use of well-being data is the study of the causes and consequences of
social capital. The widespread interest among social scientists and policy-makers in
social capital has much to do with influential studies, especially those of Putnam
(1995, 2000) that have shown sharp falls in trust and participation over the past
forty years in the United States, following a period of rapid rise over the first sixty
yearsof the twentieth century. The final decadesof the twentieth century have also
seen rapid economic growth and greater inequality of income distribution in the
United States. Are these economic and social trends connected? If so, then how,
and how can they be jointly assessed?