Somewhat paradoxically Colombians experienced unambiguous improvements in well-being between 1997
and 2003, despite suffering persistent levels of violence and insecurity and going through the worst
recession of the last century (1998) –which increased poverty, back to the level of 1988-. This chapter
attempts to explain the changes in self-reported well-being with alternative multidimensional poverty
indexes –MDPI- of three variables that Colombians identified as public policy priorities during the 1997-
2003 period: security-violence, income-poverty, and education. Initial estimates using a MDPI of
consumption (as monetary dimension of poverty), education, and security renders mixed evidence to
explain improving perceptions of well-being in 2003. However, introducing a more accurate measurement
of consumption (one that includes public subsidies of social programs) gives a more consistent picture of
the link between changes in well-being and the MDPI. Moreover, the degree of consistency is even larger
when the welfare weights of non-monetary dimensions -like education and security- are raised vis-à-vis
consumption. The results of this investigation show that parametrizing axiomatically derived MDP indices,
while maintaining consistency with evidence on reported well-being of Colombian households, provides a
path to derive non-arbitrary weights for the variables included, to avoid arbitrary aggregation
procedures, and to reflect more accurately the impact that each dimension of poverty has on the overall
wellbeing within the household.