Per capita income and quality life potencial (QLP) in Spain (1981-1999)

The Quality Life Potential, QLP is a new well-being measure. The QLP combines income above social poverty line with life expectancy at any age according to the quality life function. The objective of this research is to show the feasibility and relevance of QLP estimation with available statistical data. Furthermore, the estimated QLP will be compared to some conventional income measures as the per capita GDP. The basic concepts of the quality life function will be presented. The QLP will be derived to a simple functional relation. The operative methodology to computing QLP will be specified and applied to Spanish available data from 1980 to 1999. The QLP construction methodology leads to elaborate related family indicators: life potentials and quality incomes. These indicators allow us the analytic decomposition of QLP that explains the evolution along time. The analytic decomposition helps us to understand when and where the conventional income indicators could be a good estimator of social well-being and economic development