Taipei Times:
Government should focus on social happiness
26 March 2018
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network has published a World Happiness Report annually since 2012. This year’s report has been widely reported, because Taiwan is ranked as the 26th-happiest nation in the world. Some Internet users have voiced doubts about the ranking: How could Taiwan perform so well given the stagnant domestic economy and the division between the political camps? The report is a collaborative research project conducted by three internationally renowned economists: John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs. John Helliwell, previously cochair of Harvard University’s Canada Program and now professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia, has spent many years studying national happiness. Richard Layard is professor at the Center for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He served as a consultant in former British prime minister Tony Blair’s Cabinet and is known in Taiwan for his book Happiness: Lessons from a new science, translated into Chinese and published in Taiwan in 2006.
Related publications
World Happiness Report 2018, John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey D. Sachs (Eds), March 2018
https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf
Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, Richard Layard, Penguin, 2nd edition, 2011