Summary
IF MONEY can't buy happiness, can government make us happy? Should it even try? "Happiness economics" moved a step forward this week on the back of a BBC survey showing that, despite enormous advances in living standards, disposable wealth, health and welfare, people say they are less happy today than they were in the Fifties.
The number telling researchers they are "very happy" has fallen to little more than a third, compared with more than half who felt that way in 1957. The poll suggests that rising affluence, labour- saving devices, foreign holidays, bigger and better cars and an explosion of state welfare have failed to lift our spirits. Eight out of ten people in the poll said that the government's main aim should be to make people happier rather than wealthier.See the full content of this document
Extract
It's Hard to Be Happy If We Fear for the Future
For all its subjectivity and flakiness, the "pursuit of wellbeing" rather than economic growth on its own is an idea on the in-tide. Its most prominent champions include Lord Layard of the LSE, Paul Dolan, head of the Centre for Wellbeing in Public Pol...
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