DOCSLIB.ORG

The Pursuit of Happiness.” Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, 1776

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Pursuit of Happiness.” Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, 1776 chapter one happiness: a new science All citizens are entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, 1776 For the past ten years, I have been studying happiness around the world, in countries as different as Afghanistan, Chile, and the United States. It has been an amazing foray into the complexity of the human psyche on the one hand, and the simplicity of what seems to make us happy on the other. My last book on happiness, published in 2009, ended with a speculative chapter on policy, with the quote above at the top of the chapter.1 It’s either a sign of my lack of imagination or of the speed with which the current public debates have taken up the topic of happiness that I am now boldly leading off with that same quote and writing an entire book on the topic of happiness and policy. That would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. In recent years, a number of nations—from remote Bhutan to far less remote Britain, France, China, and Brazil—have begun incor- porating measures of happiness into their benchmarks of national progress.2 Even in the United States, high-level policymakers 1 01-2127-7 ch1.indd 1 5/24/11 11:35 AM happiness: a new science ranging from the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to the director of the U.S. Census Bureau have been discussing the merits and de-merits of happiness measures.3 Not surprisingly, the study of happiness has also captured the attention of the public and is now a constant focus of the media, in the United States and abroad. What has happened? The study of happiness has moved from the fringes of the “dismal science” and the esoteric realm of the philosopher to the center of vociferous debates among econo- mists. The debates cover the relationship between happiness and income and the extent to which happiness metrics can be used as proxies for utility—the streamlined concept of welfare that underlies most economic models. Is Adam Smith turning over in his grave? A skeptical view is that this is simply a temporary trend, related to the recession-related realignment of priorities, in which the pursuit of an ever-larger house has been replaced by discussions about the value of things like leisure time and socializing. Yet there are already a number of efforts under way that could result in measures of happiness becoming a part of our economic mea- sures of progress and the subject of our policy debates. Indeed, there is an ongoing discussion among prominent academics—and increasingly among policymakers—about complementing our standard measures of gross national product with national well- being indicators, indicators that can similarly be tracked over time and compared across countries.4 In 2008, the Sarkozy Commission—led by a number of promi- nent Nobel Prize–winning economists and sponsored by Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France—issued a worldwide call for the development of broader measures of national well-being. While national well-being indicators had been a subject of discussion in the academic community for years, the commission placed them at the center of a much more public debate. Ideological critics dis- missed the findings of the commission as a couched attempt by the French to make the U.S. economy look more like their “sclerotic” 2 happiness: a new science model: underemphasizing economic growth and overemphasiz- ing leisure. Yet, rather ironically, just two years later, the latest government to place serious emphasis on the measurement of happiness was the conservative government of David Cameron in Britain. Is all of this a good idea? How can more happiness not be a good thing? And what is this new “science” of happiness all about? What do we mean, for example, when we use the term “happiness”? Do we care about happiness per se or about the pursuit of happiness? Should policymakers be in the business of telling people what will make them happy?5 And whose happiness do we care about? Do we care about the happiness of isolated individuals? The happiness of nations? Or about happiness in some broader global sense? In the end, the new and rich debates on happiness and pol- icy, on national well-being indicators, and on measures of gross national happiness, among others, are raising the same fundamen- tal question. How can studies of happiness help us to better evalu- ate the state of human welfare and well-being, in both the present and the future? The tools introduced by happiness economics provide us with broader measures of well-being than do income data alone, and they allow us to test and attach relative weights to the effects of all sorts of conditions, ranging from environmental degradation and commuting time to crime and unemployment rates to smoking and exercising. They are new and powerful tools for scholars and, perhaps, for policymakers. Yet introducing broader measures of well-being into the policy arena also raises a host of unanswered questions. Among them is a conundrum raised repeatedly by my research: the paradox of happy peasants and frustrated achievers. While poor people are less happy than wealthy people on average in countries around the world, very poor people often report that they are very happy. In fact, they often report higher levels of happiness than their slightly wealthier counterparts and at times even higher levels than the 3 happiness: a new science very rich (miserable millionaires). This puzzle is explained in part by people’s ability to adapt to adversity and related differences in norms and expectations. While better accounting for differences in norms, expectations, and capacity to adapt can enhance our understanding of human well-being, they also complicate com- parisons based on well-being data. My primary objective in this book is to discuss the prom- ise—and potential pitfalls—of delving into the policy realm with happiness research and indicators. In the next chapter, I review the different definitions and conceptions of happiness and pro- vide some examples of how those definitions—such as happi- ness defined as contentment in the Benthamite sense, or as the opportunity to lead a fulfilling life in the Artistotelian sense—help explain some key relationships, such as that between happiness and income. The definition of happiness also seems to vary across people and societies and thereby helps to explain the paradox of happy peasants and frustrated achievers. In particular, I focus on the question of whether policy should be concerned with happiness per se—for example, happiness with day-to-day life—or with the opportunity to pursue happiness in the sense of building a fulfilling life, as the quote from the Decla- ration of Independence at the top of this chapter suggests. In other words, should we be listening to Bentham or to Aristotle as we think about happiness in the policy realm? On what basis—theo- retical, empirical, or normative—should we make that decision? In chapter 3, I review what we know about happiness in the United States and around the world, based on my own research and that of several other scholars (that chapter can be skipped by those readers already familiar with the literature). In chapter 4, I focus on the unanswered questions that are posed by the empiri- cal research and, in particular, the conundrum posed by people’s ability to adapt to a wide range of phenomena, including crime, corruption, poverty, and poor health, and still report being happy. 4 happiness: a new science In chapter 5, I attempt to bring these issues to bear on the policy debate, both in terms of what they imply for our con- crete attempts to develop operational measures of well-being and in terms of deeper philosophical questions about which dimen- sions of human welfare public policy should be most concerned about. Accepting that determining which dimensions of human welfare are most important to policy poses difficulties for both method and economic theory, I believe that the effort to do so will force us to think deeply and productively about what measures of human well-being are the most accurate benchmarks of economic progress and human development. a note on terminology Before we delve into the deeper conceptual questions or even a description of the general approach taken here, it is important to clarify what we mean when we use the terms “happiness,” “well- being,” “subjective well-being,” and “life satisfaction,” among others. They are often used interchangeably in the economics lit- erature, while psychologists take much more care in distinguishing the nuances between them. Meanwhile, the nascent discussion on policy, described in detail throughout the book, is forcing more definitional clarity precisely because the differences in the mean- ing of these terms could have vastly different policy implications. While the terms are related, they have distinct meanings. “Happiness” is perhaps the most open-ended and least well- defined of the terms, although it is the one that gets the most public attention and interest. It is also the term that appears in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A happiness question attempts to gauge how happy people feel about their lives in general. As discussed below, from an empirical research perspec- tive, this question is useful precisely because it does not impose a definition of happiness on the respondents and they conceptual- ize happiness for themselves. 5 happiness: a new science “Life satisfaction” is a closely related term, and responses to questions about life satisfaction correlate very closely with those to happiness questions.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Happiness, Economics and Public Policy Happiness, Economics and Public Policy
    Happiness, Economics and Public Policy Happiness, Economics and Public Policy HELEN JOHNS AND PAUL ORMEROD wi t h commentaries by s a m u e l b r i t ta n a n d melaniepowell The Institute of Economic Affairs CONTENTS The authors 7 First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Foreword 8 The Institute of Economic Affairs 2 Lord North Street Summary 12 Westminster List of figures 16 London sw1p 3lb in association with Profile Books Ltd 1 Introduction 19 The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve public understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society, by analysing 2 Happiness research and economic theory 23 and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. Copyright © The Institute of Economic Affairs 2007 3 Happiness, income and policy 28 The moral right of the authors has been asserted. Happiness and national income 28 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, Happiness and life expectancy 31 no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a The problems with the happiness data 31 retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written Happiness and public expenditure 34 permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. Happiness and social conditions 35 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Happiness and the distribution of income 38 isbn9780255366007 Individuals adapt to expectations and realisable aspirations 40 Many IEA publications are translated into languages other than English or are reprinted.
    [Show full text]
  • John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey D. Sachs
    2018 John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey D. Sachs Table of Contents World Happiness Report 2018 Editors: John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey D. Sachs Associate Editors: Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Haifang Huang and Shun Wang 1 Happiness and Migration: An Overview . 3 John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey D. Sachs 2 International Migration and World Happiness . 13 John F. Helliwell, Haifang Huang, Shun Wang and Hugh Shiplett 3 Do International Migrants Increase Their Happiness and That of Their Families by Migrating? . 45 Martijn Hendriks, Martijn J. Burger, Julie Ray and Neli Esipova 4 Rural-Urban Migration and Happiness in China . 67 John Knight and Ramani Gunatilaka 5 Happiness and International Migration in Latin America . 89 Carol Graham and Milena Nikolova 6 Happiness in Latin America Has Social Foundations . 115 Mariano Rojas 7 America’s Health Crisis and the Easterlin Paradox . 146 Jeffrey D. Sachs Annex: Migrant Acceptance Index: Do Migrants Have Better Lives in Countries That Accept Them? . 160 Neli Esipova, Julie Ray, John Fleming and Anita Pugliese The World Happiness Report was written by a group of independent experts acting in their personal capacities. Any views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization, agency or programme of the United Nations. 2 Chapter 1 3 Happiness and Migration: An Overview John F. Helliwell, Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, and Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Richard Layard, Wellbeing Programme, Centre for Economic Performance, at the London School of Economics and Political Science Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director, SDSN, and Director, Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University The authors are grateful to the Ernesto Illy Foundation and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research for research support, and to Gallup for data access and assistance.
    [Show full text]
  • World Happiness REPORT Edited by John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs World Happiness Report Edited by John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs
    World Happiness REPORT Edited by John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs World Happiness reporT edited by John Helliwell, richard layard and Jeffrey sachs Table of ConTenTs 1. Introduction ParT I 2. The state of World Happiness 3. The Causes of Happiness and Misery 4. some Policy Implications references to Chapters 1-4 ParT II 5. Case study: bhutan 6. Case study: ons 7. Case study: oeCd 65409_Earth_Chapter1v2.indd 1 4/30/12 3:46 PM Part I. Chapter 1. InTrodUCTIon JEFFREY SACHS 2 Jeffrey D. Sachs: director, The earth Institute, Columbia University 65409_Earth_Chapter1v2.indd 2 4/30/12 3:46 PM World Happiness reporT We live in an age of stark contradictions. The world enjoys technologies of unimaginable sophistication; yet has at least one billion people without enough to eat each day. The world economy is propelled to soaring new heights of productivity through ongoing technological and organizational advance; yet is relentlessly destroying the natural environment in the process. Countries achieve great progress in economic development as conventionally measured; yet along the way succumb to new crises of obesity, smoking, diabetes, depression, and other ills of modern life. 1 These contradictions would not come as a shock to the greatest sages of humanity, including Aristotle and the Buddha. The sages taught humanity, time and again, that material gain alone will not fulfi ll our deepest needs. Material life must be harnessed to meet these human needs, most importantly to promote the end of suffering, social justice, and the attainment of happiness. The challenge is real for all parts of the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Happiness As a Public Policy Tool
    Happiness as a Public Policy Tool Arik Levinson Georgetown University Economics Department [email protected] December 2012 Chapter __ in Research Handbook on Behavioral Law and Economics Joshua Teitelbaum and Kathryn Zeiler, editors Acknowledgments Part of this research has been funded by the National Science Foundation grant #0617839. I am grateful to Emma Nicholson and James O'Brien for research assistance, to the research staff at the National Survey of Families and Households for assisting me with matching confidential aspects of their data to geographic information, and to John Helliwell, Chris Barrington-Leigh, Simon Luechinger, Erzo Luttmer, Karl Scholz and Heinz Welsch for helpful suggestions. Happiness as a Public Policy Tool: A Skeptic's View What is a chapter about "happiness" doing in a book titled Behavioral Law and Economics? Although the two new fields of happiness economics and behavioral economics are distinct, they share multiple traits. Behavioral economists develop non-standard utility functions in an attempt to formally model and explain seemingly irrational human choices. Happiness economists take survey respondents' statements about their happiness as a proxy for conventional concepts of utility. Along the way, both weave insights from psychology into standard economic theory. Both confront the standard theory's fundamental assumption that humans make choices as if they are maximizing a well-defined utility function. Both use tools that can circumvent problems posed by neoclassical economics in ways that have important public policy applications. Behavioral economists have proposed policies that capitalize on behavior that appears irrational under conventional utility functions in order to improve outcomes.1 Similarly, measures of happiness have recently been used to assess costs and benefits of public policy outcomes that are difficult to value using traditional economics tools – intangibles such as the psychic costs of unemployment and inflation, airport noise, and air pollution.
    [Show full text]
  • Happiness, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy
    NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES HAPPINESS, BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS, AND PUBLIC POLICY Arik Levinson Working Paper 19329 http://www.nber.org/papers/w19329 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 August 2013 Part of this research has been funded by the National Science Foundation grant #0617839. I am grateful to Emma Nicholson and James O'Brien for research assistance, to the research staff at the National Survey of Families and Households for assisting me with matching confidential aspects of their data to geographic information, and to John Helliwell, Chris Barrington-Leigh, Simon Luechinger, Erzo Luttmer, Karl Scholz and Heinz Welsch for helpful suggestions. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer- reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2013 by Arik Levinson. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Happiness, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy Arik Levinson NBER Working Paper No. 19329 August 2013 JEL No. D03,H41,Q51 ABSTRACT The economics of "happiness" shares a feature with behavioral economics that raises questions about its usefulness in public policy analysis. What happiness economists call "habituation" refers to the fact that people's reported well-being reverts to a base level, even after major life events such as a disabling injury or winning the lottery.
    [Show full text]
  • Keynes on Happiness and Economics
    For Soc Econ DOI 10.1007/s12143-010-9085-2 The Economic Problem of Happiness: Keynes on Happiness and Economics Anna Maria Carabelli & Mario Aldo Cedrini # Association for Social Economics 2011 Abstract By stressing the substantial continuity of vision between John Maynard Keynes’s early unpublished essays and his more mature writings, the paper discusses Keynes’s ethics and focuses on his thoughts about happiness. In particular, we emphasize the anti-utilitarianism of Keynes’s vision and his belief that material wealth is but a precondition to enjoy the possibilities of a good life, and direct attention to problems of incommensurability raised by the multidimensional nature of happiness as considered by Keynes. We then argue that the rediscovery of Keynes’s legacy in this respect may be a precious counterweight to the most controversial aspects of today’s happiness research. Keywords Happiness . Happiness economics . John Maynard Keynes Introduction Mainstream happiness economics makes scarce, if any, use of the history of economic thought. Yet, happiness was one of the most widely debated issues from ancient Greek philosophers to the Philosophes of the European Enlightenment. Rather than embedded in this history classical economics concentrated on a more “coherent and unambiguously definable subject of investigation”,thatofmaterialwealth(Pasinetti 2003, p. 4). With the advent of neoclassical economics and the model of homo œconomicus, material wealth was replaced with the “psychological element of human enjoyment” (ib., p. 5), and the concept of utility superseded happiness as the key issue in economics. It is however surprising that non-mainstream economic approaches to happiness, relying on a “eudaimonic-objective” (Bruni and Porta 2005)ideaof A.
    [Show full text]
  • Course Manual for Happiness Economics
    Radboud University, Nijmegen School of Management Course manual for Happiness Economics 1. Identification Name and course code Happiness Economics FTR-FIMI222 Name of coordinator and participating lecturers Prof.dr. Esther-Mirjam Sent (coördinator) E: [email protected] Dr. Ivan Boldyrev E: [email protected] Dr. André van Hoorn E: [email protected] Drs. Charan van Krevel E: [email protected] Drs. Robbert Rademakers E: [email protected] Name of programme(s)/specialisation(s) of which the course is a compulsory or optional part Compulsory for: This course is part of the minor ‘Well-Being and Society.’ Prerequisites None Elective Yes Assessment (written/oral/exam/paper, etc.) Policy Paper (40%), written exam (60%) 1 Learning outcomes At the end of this course, students are expected to: • describe and explain the historical perspective of economists on well-being and welfare; • explain, defend, and critique the subjective well-being literature, specifically taking into account the effects of income and employment on individuals’ perceived well-being; • compare and contrast proposed measurement tools for well-being, including the methodological views that underlie these instruments; • carry out an empirical study examining possible alternatives for classical measures of well- being, and report scientifically on these findings. Period in which the course is offered Block 2 2. Content This course is part of the minor ‘Well-Being and Society.’ The fact that money does not buy happiness is obvious, but what does? This course offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the nature and determinants of subjective well-being, in particular income and job market outcomes.
    [Show full text]
  • A Formal Economic Theory for Happiness Studies: a Solution to the Happiness-Income Puzzle∗
    A Formal Economic Theory for Happiness Studies: A Solution to the Happiness-Income Puzzle¤ Guoqiang TIANy Liyan YANG Department of Economics Department of Economics Texas A&M University Cornell University College Station, Texas 77843 Ithaca, N.Y. 14853 October, 2005/Revised: August, 2006 Abstract This paper develops a formal and rigorous economic theory that provides a micro foun- dation for studying happiness from the perspectives of social happiness maximization and pursuit of individual self-interest, and can be especially used to study a paradox at the heart of our lives: average happiness levels do not increase as countries grow wealthier. The theory, which takes into account both income factors and non-income factors, integrates the existing reference group theory and the \omitted variables" theory, and identi¯es a fundamental con- flict between individual and social welfare/happiness. We show that, up to a critical income level that is positively related to non-material status, increase in income enhances happi- ness. Once the critical income level is achieved, increase in income cannot increase social happiness and in fact, somewhat surprising, social happiness actually decreases, resulting in Pareto ine±cient outcomes. A policy implication of our model is that government should promote income and non-income status in a balanced way by increasing public expenses on non-material wants such as mental status, family life, health, basic human rights, etc. when national income becomes relatively large. Our empirical results con¯rm the implication and are robust across the countries under consideration. Journal of Economic Literature Classi¯cation Number: D61, D62, H23. ¤We wish to thank Xiaoyong Cao, John Helliwell, Li Gan, Lu Hong, Erzo F.P.
    [Show full text]
  • Assessing Happiness: How Economic Factors Measure Up
    The Park Place Economist Volume 21 Issue 1 Article 11 4-2013 Assessing Happiness: How Economic Factors Measure Up Elizabeth Hancock '13 Illinois Wesleyan University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/parkplace Recommended Citation Hancock, Elizabeth '13 (2013) "Assessing Happiness: How Economic Factors Measure Up," The Park Place Economist: Vol. 21 Available at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/parkplace/vol21/iss1/11 This Article is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Commons @ IWU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this material in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This material has been accepted for inclusion by faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ©Copyright is owned by the author of this document. Assessing Happiness: How Economic Factors Measure Up Abstract The perception of economics as a dismal science for killjoys is challenged with the development of happiness economics. The economics of happiness refers to the study of subjective well being compared to income, unemployment, and other economic factors. In addition, the field expands the notions of happiness and welfare past basic measures of utility simultaneously posing serious policy implications. For example, if an economic policy is not contributing to the happiness of its constituents then what is its purpose? Furthermore, are policy makers catering to the needs of individuals or larger entities like corporations? The development of the economics of happiness is important when addressing the true well-being of people relative to the economy.
    [Show full text]
  • David G. Blanchflower David N.F. Bell Alberto Montagnoli Mirko Moro
    The effects of macroeconomic shocks on well-being David G. Blanchflower Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College, Division of Economics, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, Federeal Reserve Bank of Boston, Peterson Institute for International Economics, IZA, CESifo and NBER David N.F. Bell Division of Economics Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, IZA and CPC Alberto Montagnoli Division of Economics Stirling Management School, University of Stirling Mirko Moro Division of Economics Stirling Management School, University of Stirling and ESRI 18th March 2013 Abstract Previous literature has found that both unemployment and inflation lower happiness. The macroeconomist Arthur Okun characterised the negative effects of unemployment and inflation by the misery index - the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates. This paper extends the literature by looking at more countries over a longer time period. We find, conventionally, that both higher unemployment and higher inflation lower happiness. We also discover that unemployment depresses well-being more than inflation. We characterise this wellbeing trade-off between unemployment and inflation using what we describe as the misery ratio. Our estimates with European data imply that a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate lowers well being by two and a half times as much as a one percentage point increase in the inflation rate. We also find that banking crises lower individual well-being, including crises before the Great Recession. Keywords Inflation, Misery-index, Unemployment, Well-being, Banking crises Unemployment and inflation are major targets of macroeconomic policy, presumably because policymakers believe that a higher level of either variable has an adverse effect on welfare.
    [Show full text]
  • Essays on the Economics of Happiness
    Essays on the Economics of Happiness by Jean-Benoit Gregoire Rousseau A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Economics) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Miles S. Kimball, Co-Chair Assistant Professor Daniel S. Silverman, Co-Chair Professor Norbert W. Schwarz Professor Robert J. Willis Jean-Benoit Gregoire Rousseau 2009 c All Rights Reserved A` Emilie, ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my co-chairs, Dan S. Silverman and Miles S. Kim- ball. Professor Silverman’s many insightful comments, meticulous approach to research and en- couragements have been greatly appreciated. I am thankful to Professor Kimball for showing enthusiasm in my work and for believing in my capacity to conduct good research. I also wish to acknowledge the guidance provided by the other members of my committee: Robert J. Willis and Norbet W. Schwarz. Working with the professors of the University of Michigan as been a privilege. Over the last three years I have acted as program reporter for the Social Interaction, Identity and Well-Being Group at the Canadian Institute for Research. Being exposed to the work of some of the pioneers in my field of research has had an undeniable influence on my work. I am thankful for the opportunity. This research was funded in part by a the Regents of the University of Michi- gan, by the Rackham Graduate School, by the Fonds Quebecois´ pour la Recherche sur la Societe et la Culture and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
    [Show full text]
  • Happiness and Inequality Insights Into a Difficult Relationship – and Possible Political Implications
    Working Paper No. 30, 2012 Happiness and Inequality Insights into a Difficult Relationship – and Possible Political Implications Philipp Lepenies Working Paper Series desiguALdades.net Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series Published by desiguALdades.net Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America The desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series serves to disseminate first results of ongoing research projects in order to encourage the exchange of ideas and academic debate. Inclusion of a paper in the desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series does not constitute publication and should not limit publication in any other venue. Copyright remains with the authors. Copyright for this edition: Philipp Lepenies Editing and Production: Barbara Göbel / Barbara Fritz / Laura Kemmer / Paul Talcott All working papers are available free of charge on our website www.desiguALdades.net. Lepenies, Philipp 2012: “Happiness and Inequality: Insights into a Difficult Relationship – and Possible Political Implications”, desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series No. 30, Berlin: desiguALdades.net Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America. The paper was produced by Philipp Lepenies during his Fellowship at desiguALdades.net from 01/2012 to 06/2012. desiguALdades.net Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this Working Paper; the views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author or authors and do not necessarily reflect those of desiguALdades.net. Happiness and Inequality Insights into a Difficult Relationship – and Possible Political Implications Philipp Lepenies Abstract This paper explores the relationship between happiness and inequality.
    [Show full text]