Download or read book The Macroeconomics of Happiness written by Rafael Di Tella and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Happiness Economics and Public Policy written by Helen Johns (M. Sc.) and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains commentaries by Samuel Brittan and Melanie Powell. In Happiness, Economics and Public Policy, Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod analyse the economic research that underlies politicians' growing preoccupation with measures of 'well-being'. In a lucid and compelling analysis, written for economists and non-economists alike, the authors find that happiness research cannot be used to justify government intervention in the way its proponents suggest.Those who wish governments to take into account measures of well-being when setting policy often point to the fact that increases in income have not led to increases in measured happiness, and thus governments should concentrate on redistribution and improving the quality of life, rather than on allowing people to benefit from economic growth.
Download or read book Beyond Economics written by Jan Ott and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-12 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a lot of attention for happiness, but there is also a lot of confusion, about the concept and the nature of happiness. This book wants to reduce this confusion, to make the deliberations and discussions about happiness more productive. A reduction of confusion will also make it easier to assess happiness as a possible standard in our personal life and in politics. Acceptance of happiness as a standard will have positive effects. Acceptance in personal life will make individuals more critical, and less vulnerable for adversity and manipulation. Acceptance in politics will contribute to a better detection and analysis of social-economic problems. Such positive effects are important for well-being. Well-being is usually defined as ‘objective well-being’ by experts, like medical specialists or psychologists. They apply their professional standards like blood pressure or personality characteristics. Happiness, on the other hand, is ‘subjective well-being’ as experienced by the people themselves. This happiness is the appreciation of one’s own life as a whole, and this appreciation is based on standards people have adopted themselves, knowingly or unknowingly. Happiness as subjective well-being, and objective well-being as defined by experts, are complementary. It is important to asses objective and subjective well-being simultaneously, and it is incorrect to ignore one of them.
Download or read book The Political Economy of Human Happiness written by Benjamin Radcliff and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Data, methods and theories of contemporary social science can be applied to resolve how political outcomes in democratic societies determine the quality of life that citizens experience. Radcliff seeks to provide an objective answer to the debate between left and right over what public policies best contribute to people leading positive and rewarding lives. Radcliff offers an empirical answer, relying on the same canons of reason and evidence required of any other issue amenable to study through social-scientific means. The analysis focuses on the consequences of three specific political issues: the welfare state and the general size of government, labor organization, and state efforts to protect workers and consumers through economic regulation. The results indicate that in each instance, the program of the Left best contributes to citizens leading more satisfying lives and, critically, that the benefits of greater happiness accrue to everyone in society, rich and poor alike.
Download or read book Happiness Economics written by Bernard M. S. van Praag and published by Now Publishers Inc. This book was released on 2011 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HAPPINESS ECONOMICS deals with the concept of happiness in economics. Most economists until recently were very suspicious about happiness economics and the common opinion was that happiness is not empirically measurable. Actually there is now a growing body of serious economists who are willing, either reluctantly or wholeheartedly, to include happiness economics as a part of economic science. For a better understanding of happiness economics, the authors examine the viewpoint of mainstream economics in the introduction. Section 2 starts by considering the methods of analysis in happiness economics. Section 3 considers life satisfaction (or happiness), section 4 considers domain satisfactions, section 5 returns to the ordinality-cardinality question, and Section 6 provides the link between domain satisfactions and satisfaction with life as a whole. Section 7 considers the work of the Leyden school that may be seen as a forerunner of modern happiness economics. Section 8 considers the effect of the individual's reference group on her or his happiness. Section 9 examines the influence of past events and the anticipated future on present life satisfaction. Section 10 deals with the effect of climate and more generally of the external environment on satisfaction. Section 11 considers the effect of inequality on individual happiness and considers happiness inequality per se. Section 12 considers how the vignette approach, so popular in marketing, can be applied in happiness economics. Section 13 delineates the significance of happiness economics for normative economics. And Section 14 draws some conclusions and discusses the relevance of the new findings for economic science and the social sciences in general.
Download or read book Happiness Growth and the Life Cycle written by Richard A. Easterlin and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-11-25 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second in a series of books published with the IZA and honoring the work of its annual prize winners in labour economics. It presents Richard Easterlin's outstanding research on the analysis of subjective well-being, and on the relationship between demographic developments and economic outcomes.
Download or read book Gross National Happiness and Macroeconomic Indicators in the Kingdom of Bhutan written by Sriram Balasubramanian and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the origins and use of the concept of Gross National Happiness (or subjective well-being) in the Kingdom of Bhutan, and the relationship between measured well-being and macroeconomic indicators. While there are only a few national surveys of Gross National Happiness in Bhutan, the concept has been used to guide public policymaking for the country’s various Five-Year Plans. Consistent with the Easterlin Paradox, available evidence indicates that Bhutan’s rapid increase in national income is only weakly associated with increases in measured levels of well-being. It will be important for Bhutan to undertake more frequent Gross National Happiness surveys and evaluations, to better build evidence for comovement of well-being and macroeconomic concepts such as real national income.
Download or read book Subjective Economic Welfare written by Martin Ravallion and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1999 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: April 1999 - As conventionally measured, current household income relative to a poverty line can only partially explain how Russian adults perceive their economic welfare. Other factors include past incomes, individual incomes, household consumption, current unemployment, risk of unemployment, health status, education, and relative income in the area of residence. Paradoxically, when economists analyze a policy's impact on welfare they typically assume that people are the best judges of their own welfare, yet resist directly asking them if they are better off. Early ideas of utility were explicitly subjective, but modern economists generally ignore people's expressed views about their own welfare. Even using a broad set of conventional socioeconomic data may not reflect well people's subjective perceptions of their poverty. Ravallion and Lokshin examine the determinants of subjective economic welfare in Russia, including its relationship to conventional objective indicators. For data on subjective perceptions, they use survey responses in which respondents rate their level of welfare from poor to rich on a nine-point ladder. As an objective indicator of economic welfare, they use the most common poverty indicator in Russia today, in which household incomes are deflated by household-specific poverty lines. They find that Russian adults with higher family income per equivalent adult are less likely to place themselves on the lowest rungs of the subjective ladder and more likely to put themselves on the upper rungs. But current household income does not explain well self-reported assessments of whether someone is poor or rich. Expanding the set of variables to include incomes at different dates, expenditures, educational attainment, health status, employment, and average income in the area of residence doubles explanatory power. Healthier and better educated adults with jobs perceive themselves to be better off, controlling for income. The unemployed view their welfare as lower, even with full income replacement. Individual income matters independent of per capita household income. Relative income also matters. Living in a richer area lowers perceived economic welfare, controlling for income and other factors. This paper-a product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to better understand the relationship between objective and subjective economic welfare. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Policies for Poor Areas (RPO 681-39). The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].
Download or read book Economics of Happiness written by Bruno S. Frey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-02-26 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on what makes people happy. The author explains methods for measuring subjective life satisfaction and well-being by discussing economic and sociodemographic factors, as well as the psychological, cultural and political dimensions of personal happiness. Does higher income increase happiness? Are people in rich countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries, happier than those living elsewhere? Does losing one’s job make one unhappy? What is the role of genetic endowments inherited from our parents? How important are physical and emotional health to subjective life satisfaction? Do older people tend to be happier, or younger people? Are close social relationships necessary for happiness? Do political conditions, such as respect for human rights, democracy and autonomy, play a part? How can governments contribute to the population’s happiness? This book answers these questions on the basis of extensive interdisciplinary research reflecting the current state of knowledge. The book will appeal to anyone interested in learning more about the various dimensions of personal well-being beyond the happiness-prosperity connection, as well as to policymakers looking for guidance on how to improve happiness in societies.
Download or read book International Differences in Well Being written by Ed Diener and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-10 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together the best of current global research on the measurement and understanding of international differences in well-being
Download or read book The Happiness Equation written by Nick Powdthavee and published by Icon Books Ltd. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is marriage worth £200,000 a year? Why will having children make you unhappy? Why does happiness from winning the lottery take two years to arrive? Why does time heal the pain of divorce or the death of a loved one – but not unemployment? Everybody wants to be happy. But how much happiness – precisely – will each life choice bring? Should I get married? Am I really going to feel happy about the career that I picked? How can we decide not only which choice is better for us, but how much it's better for us? The result of new, unique research, The Happiness Equation brings to a general readership for the first time the new science of happiness economics. It describes how we can measure emotional reactions to different life experiences and present them in ways we can relate to. How, for instance, monetary values can be put on things that can't be bought or sold in the market – such as marriage, friendship, even death – so that we can objectively rank them in order of preference. It also explains why some things matter more to our happiness than others (like why seeing friends is worth more than a Ferrari) while others are worth almost nothing (like sunny weather). Nick Powdthavee – whose work on happiness has been discussed on both the Undercover Economist and Freakanomics blogs – brings cutting-edge research on how we value our happiness to a general audience, with a style that wears its learning lightly and is a joy to read.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Happiness written by Susan A. David and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 1137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A text for researchers and practitioners interested in human happiness. Its editors and chapter contributors are world leaders in the investigation of happiness across the fields of psychology, education, philosophy, social policy and economics.
Download or read book Macroeconomics written by David Miles and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-04-09 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Macroeconomics: Understanding the Global Economy, 3rd Edition is to help students – and indeed anyone – understand contemporary and past economic events that shape the world we live in, and at a sophisticated level. But it does so without focusing on mathematical techniques and models for their own sake. Theory is taken seriously – so much so that the authors go to pains to understand the key aspects of theories in a way that will not put people off before they see how theories are useful to analyse issues. The authors believe that theories are essential to better understand the world, thus the book includes a wealth of historic and current episodes and data to both see how theories can help interpret the world and also to judge their validity. Economies today are very inter-connected; what happens in China matters pretty much everywhere; and what happens in one (even small) country in the euro zone has implications for the whole euro area and beyond, consequently Macroeconomics, 3rd Edition adopts a very international focus.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Quality of Government written by Andreas Bågenholm and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 881 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent research demonstrates that the quality of public institutions is crucial for a number of important environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes, and thereby human well-being. The Quality of Government (QoG) approach directs attention to issues such as impartiality in the exercise of public power, professionalism in public service delivery, effective measures against corruption, and meritocracy instead of patronage and nepotism. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this rapidly expanding research field and also identifies viable avenues for future research. The initial chapters focus on theoretical approaches and debates, and the central question of how QoG can be measured. A second set of chapters examines the wealth of empirical research on how QoG relates to democratization, social trust and cohesion, ethnic diversity, happiness and human wellbeing, democratic accountability, economic growth and inequality, political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and the outbreak of civil conflicts. The remaining chapters turn to the perennial issue of which contextual factors and policy approaches—national, local, and international—have proven successful (and not so successful) for increasing QoG. The Quality of Government approach both challenges and complements important strands of inquiry in the social sciences. For research about democratization, QoG adds the importance of taking state capacity into account. For economics, the QoG approach shows that in order to produce economic prosperity, markets need to be embedded in institutions with a certain set of qualities. For development studies, QoG emphasizes that issues relating to corruption are integral to understanding development writ large.
Download or read book Beyond GDP written by Marc Fleurbaey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In spite of recurrent criticism and an impressive production of alternative indicators by scholars and NGOs, GDP remains the central indicator of countries' success. This book revisits the foundations of indicators of social welfare, and critically examines the four main alternatives to GDP that have been proposed: composite indicators, subjective well-being indexes, capabilities (the underlying philosophy of the Human Development Index), and equivalent incomes. Its provocative thesis is that the problem with GDP is not that it uses a monetary metric but that it focuses on a narrow set of aspects of individual lives. It is actually possible to build an alternative, more comprehensive, monetary indicator that takes income as its first benchmark and adds or subtracts corrections that represent the benefit or cost of non-market aspects of individual lives. Such a measure can respect the values and preferences of the people and give as much weight as they do to the non-market dimensions. A further provocative idea is that, in contrast, most of the currently available alternative indicators, including subjective well-being indexes, are not as respectful of people's values because, like GDP, they are too narrow and give specific weights to the various dimensions of life in a more uniform way, without taking account of the diversity of views on life in the population. The popular attraction that such alternative indicators derive from being non-monetary is therefore based on equivocation. Moreover, it is argued in this book that "greening" GDP and relative indicators is not the proper way to incorporate sustainability concerns. Sustainability involves predicting possible future paths, therefore different indicators than those assessing the current situation. While various indicators have been popular (adjusted net savings, ecological footprint), none of them involves the necessary forecasting effort that a proper evaluation of possible futures requires.
Download or read book The Happiness Policy Handbook written by Laura Musikanski and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Build a better society through happiness policy Thomas Jefferson said that “the purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness.” Yet only now, 270 years later, is the happiness of citizens starting to be taken seriously as the purpose of government. While happiness science is advancing rapidly, and governments and organizations are creating indices for measuring happiness, there is little practical information on how to create policy to advance happiness. Drawing from a deep well of expertise and experience, The Happiness Policy Handbook is the first step-by-step guide for integrating happiness into government policy at all levels. Coverage includes: A concise background on happiness science, indices and indicators, and happiness in public policy Tools for formulating happiness policy and integrating happiness into administrative functions A concept menu of happiness policies Communicating happiness policy objectives to media and engaging with the community A happiness policy screening tool for evaluating the happiness contribution of any policy Policy perspectives from seasoned experts across sectors. The Happiness Policy Handbook is the essential resource for policymakers and professionals working to integrate happiness and well-being into governmental processes and institutions.
Download or read book Happiness Around the World written by Carol Graham and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-12-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries the pursuit of happiness was the preserve of either the philosopher or the voluptuary and took second place to the basic need to survive on the one hand, and the pressure to conform to social conventions and morality on the other. More recently there is a burgeoning interest in the study of happiness, in the social sciences and in the media. Can we really answer the question what makes people happy? Is it really grounded in credible methods and data? Is there consistency in the determinants of happiness across countries and cultures? Are happiness levels innate to individuals or can policy and the environment make a difference? How is happiness affected by poverty? By economic progress? Is happiness a viable objective for policy? This book is an attempt to answer these questions, based on research on the determinants of happiness in countries around the world, ranging from Peru and Russia to the U.S. and Afghanistan. The book reviews the theory and concepts of happiness, explaining how these concepts underpin a line of research which is both an attempt to understand the determinants of happiness and a tool for understanding the effects of a host of phenomena on human well being. The research finds surprising consistency in the determinants of happiness across levels of development. Yet there is still much debate over the relationship between happiness and income. The book explores the effects of many mediating factors in that relationship, ranging from macroeconomic trends and democracy to inequality and crime. It also reviews what we know about happiness and health and how that relationship varies according to income levels and health status. It concludes by discussing the potential - and the potential pitfalls - of using happiness surveys to contribute to better public policy.
