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Informationen zum Autor Helen Johns is an economist specializing in the analysis of environmental policy. She has worked on a broad range of research projects for the UK government, the European Commission and the private sector. Paul Ormerod is an economist and director of Volterra Consulting. He is the author of Butterfly Economics , The Death of Economics , and Why Most Things Fail . He has been published in a wide range of journals, including Diplomacy and Statecraft , the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation , and Physica A . Klappentext With commentaries by Samuel Brittan and Melanie Powell. In "Happiness, Economics and Public Policy", Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod analyse the economic research that underlies politicians growing preoccupation with measures of 'well-being'. In a lucid and compelling analysis, written for economists and non-economists alike, the authors find that happiness research cannot be used to justify government intervention in the way its proponents suggest. Those who wish governments to take into account measures of well-being when setting policy often point to the fact that increases in income have not led to increases in measured happiness, and thus governments should concentrate on redistribution and improving the quality of life, rather than on allowing people to benefit from economic growth. In fact, measured happiness does not appear to be related to public spending, violent crime, property crime, sexual equality, disability, life expectancy or unemployment either. The stark fact is that, as Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod demonstrate, the difficulties in measuring societys happiness are insurmountable, and policymakers should not claim that they can control and increase happiness through public policy decisions.
