The Happiness Policy

I don't get to read for pleasure nearly as much as I'd like. In fact, a bookstore or library with full stacks and a good coffee shop is my idea of heaven (obviously it doesn't take much to make me happy). My best, too infrequent, opportunities are when I'm on the kind of vacation that I just got back from--long enough to relax, busy enough not to get bored, with plenty of in-between time to crack a good book (particularly if, like me, you suffer from jet lag-induced insomnia).

One from this latest stack was particularly good: The Geography of Bliss by a US National Public Radio Correspondent Eric Weiner (see the NY Times book review article here). It chronicles the curmudgeonly author's efforts to find the happiest places in the world (contrasted with a few of the unhappiest) and find out why the people who live there are so, well, happy. His travels take him from the Netherlands (home of the World Database of Happiness, housed in a surprisingly sober, data intensive research organization) to places like Iceland, India, Qatar, and Bhutan. Weiner points out that social scientists have found that personal happiness is highly correlated with the things that money can't buy like close relationships, solid family lives including loving spouses/partners, and engaging in genuine acts of kindness. But researchers have also found that one of the things that contributes to personal happiness is faith in their government: that senior officials and the rest of the public service are capable, caring, and consistent in their efforts to serve constituents.

It made me remember part of a speech that I gave here in Australia on the changing nature of business and the role of 21st Century governments. In that speech, I quoted the 18th Century UK moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham who argued that the purpose of politics should be to bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. I also cited a 2006 survey in the UK that found that 81% of those polled thought that government should focus on happiness, not wealth creation.

Just for fun, before the talk, I had decided to see if there was any correlation between a country’s wealth, measured in per capita Gross National Product and its Happiness Index score which is published by researchers at Britain's University of Leicester. Sure enough, more wealth a country has, the happier its people are--up to a point, around $50,000USD per year, according to researchers. But there were a huge number of outliers--countries where people are very happy yet relatively poor (like Bhutan). When undertaking the analysis from a Purchasing Power Parity perspective (in a crude attempt to "level out" income disparities) there were even more outlier countries.

Reading The Geography of Bliss reminded me that these are the kinds of important public policy questions that we love to propose and tackle at the Heinz School--perhaps a little offbeat and counterintuitive, often data intensive, with broad implications on the management decisions made by government and business leaders affecting potentially millions of people, if not everyone on the planet. And it also reminded me that I need to get to Iceland someday...