Inequalities

Tag: happiness

  • When social policy goes wrong

    When social policy experts create a new intervention to solve some social problem or make people’s lives better, there’s two possible outcomes they’re expecting: either the intervention works, or it doesn’t. But what we forget is that there’s a third option – that our well-meaning intervention actually makes people’s lives worse. This isn’t just an…

  • An Emotional Rollercoaster: Trends in Subjective Wellbeing During the Economic Downturn

    Since 2008 Gallup has polled a random sample of 1,000 Americans daily (link here) about their subjective well-being. The data provide a rich basis for examining the short-run effects of the economic recession on self-reported happiness, life evaluation, and stress. In a masterful paper, Angus Deaton digs into the data to show how the population…

  • Money Can Buy Happiness

    Apologies for missing a post last week, last week I was at the Association of Public Policy and Management (APPAM) annual meeting, and this week I am in South Africa (hopefully some comments on South African inequality issues soon). Below are some impressions from one of the APPAM sessions, “The Measurement and Evaluation of Happiness…

  • Does money buy happiness?

    Whenever research questions are embroiled in personal debates about the way to live a good life, then you know that you’re about to witness a scrap. And if that wasn’t enough for a robust fight, then the money-happiness link speaks to grander questions about whether we should give up on our chase of GDP growth…