ABSTRACT
Concern about the quality of life is by no means new, and such concern is not, of course, the monopoly of social scientists. However, recent developments in the fields of economics and social policy, coupled with changes in the policy environment, have intensified the interest of social scientists in particular aspects of quality of life. Economic analysis of markets in which prices are absent, such as the health and social services markets, has brought to the fore the question of appropriate measures of output and outcome. To evaluate interventions in the field of acute health care, economists have begun to develop quality of life measures. While not necessarily an output measure, change in the quality of patients’ lives is clearly one outcome of an intervention in the market. In the field of social policy the value of government intervention itself has come under scrutiny. Liberal and libertarian critiques of state welfare have argued that government intervention does not improve the quality of life of recipients of welfare programmes and, indeed, ultimately damages it. Such critiques have renewed interest in clarifying the objectives and outcomes of government interventions and also in the question of how exactly policy outcomes relate to the quality of life of those receiving services.
