Freedom and Flourishing

  It is well known that in wealthy countries, further improvement of average incomes has only a small impact on average life satisfaction. D...

  There are good reasons why public policy discussions often revolve around the benefits and costs of alternative policies. Discussions that...

“THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are fou...

The theory of subjective well-being homeostasis proposes that life satisfaction is controlled by automatic neurological processes in a mann...

Someone is sure to try to tell me that the best possible life is a bit like Groundhog Day – it is as good as life can get. If I thought tha...

Survey data on life satisfaction is a reliable tool for measuring some aspects of well-being. There is evidence (including in some research...

Early yesterday the thought occurred to me that it might be a good idea to write something about the effects of inequality on happiness le...

‘The question was whether it is more important to provide individuals with money or with autonomy. Our results suggest that providing indiv...

‘Contrary to both those who say money is not associated with happiness and those who say that it is extremely important, we found that money...

In my last post I suggested that the reasons why rapid economic growth has not resulted in increased average life satisfaction in China ove...

This is the question raised in a recent article in the Journal of Happiness Studies: “The China puzzle: falling happiness in a rising econom...

Some New Zealanders might say that this is a question that only an Australian could ask, but it seems to me to be a good way to raise the is...

A chain index is an index that is constructed from information about changes in a variable from year to year, rather than by measuring absol...

Surveys undertaken by the Pew Research Centre enable comparisons to be made between ratings of quality of life at the present time and ratin...