Financial Times:
The economics of happiness
26 January 2018
... it is easy to sympathise with Thomas Jefferson’s remark, shortly after he stepped down as US president, that “The care of human life & happiness, & not their destruction, is the first & only legitimate object of good government.”The question is what that means for government policy — and whether the academic study of wellbeing can help. The five authors of The Origins of Happiness, including Professor Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, focus on answers to the question “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life these days?” on a scale of 0-10.
Related publications
The Origins of Happiness by Andrew Clark, Sarah Flèche, Richard Layard, Natavudh Powdthavee and George Ward is published by Princeton University Press, January 2018