Mahar Mangahas is a Filipino economist (PhD, Chicago, 1970) who has researched on rice economics, land reform, poverty and the distribution of income, quality-of-life or social indicators, and public opinion. After being Professor of Economics at the University of the Philippines, and vice-president for research of the Development Academy of the Philippines, in 1985 he co-founded and has since headed Social Weather Stations (www.sws.org.ph), the Philippines’ leading institute in quality-of-life monitoring, opinion polling, and social survey archiving. In 2001, he received the World Association for Public Opinion Research’s highest honour, the Helen Dinerman Award.