Politics and Quality of Life

This book explores the relationship between quality of life, policy, and political behavior. Using carefully collected, granular data, the authors create a measurement of quality of life for each county in the United States. After applying the index to each county and calculating scores, the results are applied to key political and social questions, such as, variation in voter turnout, electoral choices, and the allocation of federal aid. By tying quality of life directly to social and political outcomes, the index thus makes possible the development of policies that actually improve the quality of life of those they effect.

Ryan M. Yonk is Senior Research Fellow at Freedom Trust, a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, and an Instructor in the Department of Political Science at Utah State University. Formerly held academic positions at Utah State University and Southern Utah University. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Georgia State University. His recent works include The Reality of American Energy, Nature Unbound: Bureaucracy vs. the Environment, Green Vs. Green: Conflicts in Environmental Priorities as numerous journal article and policy reports focused on public policy and political economy.

 Josh T. Smith is a Master's student in economics at Utah State University (2018). His recent works include several journal articles and numerous policy reports focused on public policy and political economy.