Can “happiness data” help evaluate economic policies?

Robert MacCulloch

No 16_02, Working Papers from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Abstract: Imagine a government confronted with a controversial policy question, like whether it should cut the level of unemployment benefits. Will social welfare rise as a result? Will some groups be winners and other groups be losers? Will the welfare gap between the employed and unemployed increase? “Happiness data” offer a new way to make these kinds of evaluations. These data allow us to track the well-being of the whole population, and also sub-groups like the employed and unemployed people, and correlate the results with relevant policy changes.

Keywords: wellbeing; happiness data; unemployment benefit policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E62 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2016-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap and nep-mac
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Journal Article: Can “happiness data” help evaluate economic policies? (2016)
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