Happiness, health, and economics- Oswald talks about focusing effects and happiness, lag in impact of positive events on happinesss, how the mind may influence the body and health, how blood pressure, heart rate, cortisol can be used as proxy's for well-being. In relation to the potential diminishing returns to real income identified in several data sources including the world values survey and concludes that "economists have probably been wrong to believe that economic growth makes us happier", "policy in the coming century will need to concentrate on non-materialistic goals", so GNH not GDP, Kruegar & Kahneman would agree. Some obvious target points are economic disadvantage levels, subjective positive experiences and life appraisals, and the promotion of enjoyed activities, the best of which based on minimal unpleasantness index scores in the US and France are walking, making love, exercise, and playing... so more of this is clearly needed! Spending 21% of your life in the most unpleasant activity of all, work, doesn't help either so making work more like play may be the best option...
Prof. Oswald publications: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/oswald/
2 comments:
Andrew's work in this area is always fascinating & he has done a lot to popularize [in the best sense] this work.I look forward to finding out more about how "minimal unpleasantness index scores in the US and France are walking, making love, exercise, and playing... " In particular how the weights differ between country (perhaps because weight differs between country but thats another question).I notice cheese-eating isn't included in the list- I think Homer would disagree [yes that Homer].
So when people make cross country comparisons in this area the focus is usually on the mean (i.e. why are the Irish so happy?). I heard Anthony Clare ask Andrew this question on BBC R4 and his answer was something to do with shorter commuting times. I got a good laugh about this.
But why focus on the mean?What about the variance or other moments? Theres a ton of economics (not to mention other disciples) concerned with inequality so if GNH is to be a policy objective then so too must its distribution. But then you have to face up to harder questions: is a rich banker in Foxrock saying they are unhappy comparable to a low educated homeless person who feels the same? Just a thought.
No mention of cheese, but the French do spend twice as long eating as they do in the US (11% vs 5% of time-use), like many things the US are just clearly more efficient in their use of the time!
Within person and indeed within country variation is definitely worth pursuing on the happiness front. Christopher Hsee has a paper on 'A modulus-based measurement of happiness' that tries to make the measurement more person specific and potentially more closely related to psychophysiology..
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