The Economics of Happiness and Well-Being

Fall 2017

Designing a Sustainable Future: A New Economy as if People Mattered

Session Nine: Measuring Well-being

Music: "Happy" Pharrell Williams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM

Essential questions:

• What is well-being?  How is it measured?

• What is Gross National Happiness?

• How does one measure the good life? How is it measured?

• What is a Genuine Progress Indicator? Why is it important?

Rick's Rap

Gathering: “One idea of the Good Life that I have embraced is..."….”

Video:  Nic Marks, The Happy Planet Index, TED Talk, July 2010https://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index

            Debrief: Reflective  sentence

Review of Well-Being Indicators

• “Maryland Genuine Progress Indicator ;http://dnr.maryland.gov/mdgpi/Pages/default.aspx

• Delaware Community Foundation http://delawarefocus.org

• Happy Planet Index www.happyplanetindex.org

• Your Better Life Index  www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org

• World Happiness Report http://earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2960

Exercise: Creating your  own “Saltwater Portrait”  defining the good life

            Debrief: discussion

Closing: “Something that I learned in this session was…”

                       

Readings:

             • “Fed chief looks beyond GDP to Happiness Measures”https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20120806a.htm

            • Jeffrey Sachs, “On the Economics of Happiness,” Business Insider,

            August 29, 2011 http://www.businessinsider.com/country-sees-rich-miserable-fat-americans-goes-the-other-way-2011-8

Resources:
             • Nic Marks, Ted Talk "The Happy Planet Index", transcripthttps://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index/transcript
             • " 10 Things that Science Says will Make You Happy," Yes! Magazine 10/2010http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/sustainable-happiness/10-things-science-says-will-make-you

The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government .

                                                Thomas Jefferson