The UK government is the latest to consider incorporating measures of happiness in its policymaking. This column takes stock of what we know from investigations into people’s wellbeing. It concludes that there is still much to resolve before a measure of gross national happiness is possible – or indeed desirable.
At this year’s American Economics Association annual meetings in Denver, there were the usual panels on topics ranging from the international exchange-rate regime to the roots of the global financial crisis to trends in the real-estate market in the US. More unusual was a keynote session on whether happiness measures should replace gross national product. The latter was a standing-room-only event that was written up (rather sceptically) by the Wall Street Journal. As if that were not enough, in the same month there was a panel on the same topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with Jeffrey Sachs, the once wunderkind of free markets, calling for happiness as the ninth Millennium Development Goal. That session was written up (less sceptically) by The New York Times.
Πηγή: Voxeu