Consumption and Health-based Indicators of Well-being for Lower Tier Local Authorities in England

In this paper we present estimates of economic well-being for local authorities in England Our measure is designed to reflect life-time consumption, the disutility of work and unemployment, and health state and life expectancy. Our well-being metric combines each of these factors using an expected utility framework. We extend the approach of Jones & Klenow (2016) to reflect a distinction between expected life in good health and expected life in poor health and to distinguish between private and public consumption. The analysis is presented for lower tier local authority areas (LTLAs), but it is possible to produce figures for larger geographic areas or for other aggregates of LTLAs such as rural areas or cities. The current results are provided for fiscal year 2015-6, reflecting availability of administrative income data, and are for lower-tier local authority areas (LTLAs) in England. Broadly speaking the LTLAs with the highest well-being are in areas surrounding London while the lowest levels of well-being are found in Northern England.