Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T03:11:12.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Self-reported wellbeing indicators are a valuable complement to traditional economic indicators but are not yet ready to compete with them

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2020

DAN BENJAMIN ,
KRISTEN COOPER ,
ORI HEFFETZ  and
MILES KIMBALL
DAN BENJAMIN
Affiliation:
Center for Economic and Social Research and Department of Economics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA and National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA, USA
KRISTEN COOPER
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Business, Gordon College, Wenham, MA, USA
ORI HEFFETZ*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Center for Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel and Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA and National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA, USA
MILES KIMBALL
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA and National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA, USA
*
*Correspondence to: Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, 324 Sage Hall, Ithaca, NY14853, USA. Email: oh33@cornell.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We join the call for governments to routinely collect survey-based measures of self-reported wellbeing and for researchers to study them. We list a number of challenges that have to be overcome in order for these measures to eventually achieve a status that is competitive with traditional economic indicators. We discuss in more detail one of the challenges, comprehensiveness: single-question wellbeing measures do not seem to fully capture what people care about. We briefly review the existing evidence, suggesting that survey respondents, when asked to make real or hypothetical trade-offs, would not always choose to maximize their predicted response to single-question wellbeing measures. The deviations appear systematic, and they persist under conditions where alternative explanations are less plausible. We also review an approach for combining single-question measures into a more comprehensive wellbeing index – an approach that itself is not free of ongoing theoretical and implementational challenges, but that we view as a promising direction.

Type
Articles
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , Volume 4 , Special Issue 2: On Happiness Being the Goal of Government , July 2020 , pp. 198 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, M. D. (2011), Well-Being and Fair Distribution: Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis, Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195384994.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler, M. D. (2013), ‘Happiness Surveys and Public Policy: What's the Use?’, Duke Law Journal, 62(8): 1509–1601.Google Scholar
Adler, M. D. and Dolan, P. (2008), Introducing a ‘Different Lives’ Approach to the Valuation of Health and Well-Being. University of Pennsylvania Institute for Law and Economics, Research Paper Series, Paper No. 08-05.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler, M. D., Dolan, P. and Kavetsos, G. (2017), ‘Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 139, 60–73.10.1016/j.jebo.2017.05.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. S. (1965), ‘A Theory of the Allocation of Time’, Economic Journal, 75(299): 493–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, D. J., Heffetz, O., Kimball, M. S. and Rees-Jones, A. (2012), ‘What Do You Think Would Make You Happier? What Do You Think You Would Choose?’, American Economic Review, 102(5): 2083–2110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, D. J., Heffetz, O., Kimball, M. S. and Rees-Jones, A. (2014a), ‘Can Marginal Rates of Substitution Be Inferred from Happiness Data? Evidence from Residency Choices’, American Economic Review, 104(11): 498–3528.10.1257/aer.104.11.3498CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, D. J., Heffetz, O., Kimball, M. S. and Szembrot, N. (2014b), ‘Beyond Happiness and Satisfaction: Toward Well-Being Indices Based on Stated Preference’, American Economic Review, 104(9): 2698–2735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, D. J., Cooper, K. B., Heffetz, O. and Kimball, M. (2017), ‘Challenges in Constructing A Survey-Based Well-Being Index’, American Economic Review, 107(5): 81–85.10.1257/aer.p20171099CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benjamin, D. J., Debnam, J., Fleurbaey, F., Heffetz, O., Kimball, M. S., (2019), What Do Happiness Data Mean? Evidence from a Survey of Happiness Respondents. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Bernheim, B. D. (2016), ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Unified Approach to Behavioral Welfare Economics’ Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 7(1): 12–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deaton, A. (2011), ‘Comment on “Work Disability, Work, and Justification Bias in Europe and the US”’, in Explorations in the Economics of Aging, University of Chicago Press, 312–314.Google Scholar
Decancq, K., Fleurbaey, F., Schokkaert, E. (2015), ‘Happiness, equivalent incomes, and respect for individual preferences’, Economica, 82, 1082–1106.10.1111/ecca.12152CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. and Blanchet, D. (2013), Beyond GDP: Measuring welfare and assessing sustainability, Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. and Schwandt, H. (2016), How some people can maximize their happiness even though they are not actively pursuing it. USApp– American Politics and Policy Blog, [blog] 22 June. Available at: <https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/> [Accessed 29 June 2019].+[Accessed+29+June+2019].>Google Scholar
Heffetz, O. and Rabin, M. (2013), ‘Conclusions Regarding Cross-Group Differences in Happiness Depend on Difficulty of Reaching Respondents’, American Economic Review, 103(7): 3001–3021.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kahneman, D., and Deaton, A. (2010), ‘High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(38): 16489–16493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., Wakker, P. P. and Sarin, R. (1997), ‘Back to Bentham? Explorations of experienced utility’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(2): 375–405.10.1162/003355397555235CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapteyn, A., Smith, J. P. and van Soest, A. (2007), ‘Vignettes and Self-Reports of Work Disability in the United States and the Netherlands’, American Economic Review, 97(1): 461–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenstein, G. and Ubel, P. A. (2008), ‘Hedonic adaptation and the role of decision and experience utility in public policy’, Journal of Public Economics, 92(8–9): 1795–1810.10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.12.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, R. E. (2007), ‘Adaptation and the set-point model of subjective well-being: Does happiness change after major life events? ’ Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(2): 75–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maslow, A. (1946), ‘A theory of human motivation’, in Harriman, P. L., (ed.), Twentieth Century Psychology: Recent Developments in Psychology, New York: The Philosophical Library, Inc, 22–48.Google Scholar
Oswald, A. J. (2008), ‘On the Curvature of the Reporting Function from Objective Reality to Subjective Feelings’, Economics Letters, 100(3): 369–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. (1986), ‘Facts and Values’, Philosophical Topics, 14(2): 5–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ralph, K., Palmer, K. and Olney, J. (2011), Subjective Well-being: a qualitative investigation of subjective well-being questions. Working paper for the Technical Advisory Group on 29 March 2012, Office of National Statistics, U.K.Google Scholar
Ross, M., Eyman, A. and Kishchuk, N. (1986), ‘Determinants of Subjective Well-Being’, in Olson, James M., Herman, C. P., and Zanna, Mark P. (eds), Relative Deprivation and Social Comparison: The Ontario Symposium, Volume 4. L. Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2009), ‘The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness’, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 1(2): 190–225.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A. and Fitoussi, J. P. (2009), Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic and Social Progress. See http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm.Google Scholar
Stone, A.A. and Mackie, C. (Eds.), (2013), Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience, Washington, D.C., U.S.: National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Stone, A., Schwartz, J., Broderick, J. and Deaton, A. (2010), ‘A snapshot of the age distribution of psychological well-being in the United States’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(22): 9985–9990.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Szabó, A. and Ujhelyi, G. (2017), ‘Choice and Happiness in South Africa’, Economics Letters, 155, 28–30.10.1016/j.econlet.2017.02.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Vaerenbergh, Y., and Thomas, T. D. (2013), ‘Response Styles in Survey Research: A Literature Review of Antecedents, Consequences, and Remedies’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 25(2), 195–217.10.1093/ijpor/eds021CrossRefGoogle Scholar