In Pursuit of Happiness Research: Is It Reliable? What Does It Imply for Policy?
That’s the name of my long-awaited (by me, at least) Cato Policy Analysis, published today. Here’s the abstract:
“Happiness research” studies the correlates of subjective well-being, generally through survey methods. A number of psychologists and social scientists have drawn upon this work recently to argue that the American model of relatively limited government and a dynamic market economy corrodes happiness, whereas Western European and Scandinavian-style social democracies promote it. This paper argues that happiness research in fact poses no threat to the relatively libertarian ideals embodied in the U.S. socioeconomic system. Happiness research is seriously hampered by confusion and disagreement about the definition of its subject as well as the limitations inherent in current measurement techniques. In its present state happiness research cannot be relied on as an authoritative source for empirical information about happiness, which, in any case, is not a simple empirical phenomenon but a cultural and historical moving target. Yet, even if we accept the data of happiness research at face value, few of the alleged redistributive policy implications actually follow from the evidence. The data show that neither higher rates of government redistribution nor lower levels of income inequality make us happier, whereas high levels of economic freedom and high average incomes are among the strongest correlates of subjective well-being. Even if we table the damning charges of questionable science and bad moral philosophy, the American model still comes off a glowing success in terms of happiness.
It is not a short paper, nor is it written at a USA Today level of difficulty. So reserve a cool hour for some serious intellectual contemplation. It’s worth it, I hope.
April 11th, 2007 14:46
Finally! I know what I’m doing after class.
April 11th, 2007 17:09
Damn, Will, 44 pages! Congratulations!
April 13th, 2007 10:43
I’ll have to read it. The thing that piques my immediate interest is the phrase “the American model.”
IMO, the pivotal battle in post-millennial American politics has been whether the traditional “American model,” of moderate democratic capitalism, should be overthrown for something much more free-wheeling.
Even two years ago I would have said that things trended that way.
April 13th, 2007 14:11
“It is not a short paper, nor is it written at a USA Today level of difficulty.” Having read a few pages and your blog, I conclude the problem is your writing, not the subject matter. Your style suffers from excess verbiage and redundant constructions — stylistic problems symptomatic of analytic philosophy. At any rate, congratulations on your accomplishment.
April 15th, 2007 01:19
This is some serious writing about a serious subject. I now know what I will be doing with the first few days of my summer vacation: reading your report!
April 17th, 2007 16:56
Good for you. However, it’s better not to use “table” as a verb if you are writing for an international readership.
April 17th, 2007 20:50
This area is very interesting to me. It appears, from the outside, to be the latest attempt for a certain class of intellectual to affirm that they know best for us.
One thing I wonder- what if a free market doesn’t lead to happiness, but in fact does lead to objectively better lives for people?
Would it be reasonable to suggest that people have a finite ‘worry pile’, and keep it filled with something no matter how good their objective conditions are? I worry about my children getting in to top-tier schools, or being abducted by weirdos, however remote the possibility of either. My great-grandparents worried about having to bury theirs.
While I rationally know my worries are not serious compared to theirs, I might well report myself as no happier. There might even be a ‘conservation of misery’ principle that is a legacy of evolution, the way worry warts stay alive.
But I am better off than my great-grandparents, and far more secure in nearly every way, and I don’t think left wing academic redistributionist fantasies have had anything to do with it.
April 19th, 2007 23:56
Dave Eaton argues that maybe our brains are built to worry about things even if we have no real problems, so we should not worry about whether americans say they are happy?
Having spent 3 years now living in Japan, 6 months living in France, 6 months in New York, 5 years in San Diego, and ages in San Francisco, the one constant has been that everywhere people have very different baseline levels of worry. It is clearly not just evolutionary, nor is it just about quality of life. It doesn’t matter if people are “objectively better” off (health care, etc) if social norms make them so miserable that they kill themselves.
April 25th, 2007 10:20
Will, I thoroughly enjoyed the report and will probably write a column about it eventually. Will also do a Corner post on it when I get a chance. Happy now?
April 25th, 2007 13:15
John, Yes!