What could go wrong? Many of the objections to happiness economics are well rehearsed. The authors (especially Richard Layard, who has spent the past decade reviving this neo-Benthamite idea), have heard them all and have the stock answers ready. Sceptical that life satisfaction is a good measure of well-being? Check out the correlations with brain scans and longer questionnaires. Worried that there is more to life and good governance than happiness (justice, rights and fairness for example)? Stop being a puritan. "Puritans" is exactly how Layard referred to his detractors at the December 2016 conference launching the report on which Origins is based. To emphasize the strength and high profile of his allies, he dedicated the book to Gus O'Donnell, the patron of happiness economics in the policy world, quoted Tony Blair in an epigraph, and invited Ohood Al Roumi, the aforementioned Minister of State for Happiness of UAE, to share her experience of implementing well-being policies there. This committed champion of happiness gracefully ignored the troublemaker in the audience who asked about the rights of foreign workers in her country.
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Princeton University Press
The Origins of Happiness, Andrew Clark, Sarah Fleche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh Powdthavee and George Ward, Princeton University Press, February 2018
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