I was fortunate to attend Ed Diener’s talk on Well Being and Public Policy hosted by the Claremont Graduate University’s school of Organizational and Behavioral Sciences. The talk was titled, “Happiness for Complete Wealth. Implications for Public Policy.” The over arching theme of his talk was the importance of measuring well being and using it as a measure of governmental effectiveness rather than focusing solely on Gross Domestic Product. He began his talk with this interesting quote from Robert Kennedy.

“Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product … if we should judge America by that – counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

“Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

Why should we measure well being? From the talk….

It’s Democratic – Everyone in the world has their pet projects and different things make different people happy. By measuring well being systematically with representative samples, we give equal voice to those who find mud wrestling makes them happy, rather than having public policy driven only by those who happen to have access to decision makers and what makes them happier.

It’s Useful for policy – There is considerable evidence on the negative effects of commuting such that a raise that allows people to buy a bigger house that necessitates a longer commute often has a negative impact on well being. The relationship between money and happiness is also well known and can be used to drive tax policy.

Happy people are productive people – In truth, there is not necessarily a tradeoff that only stupid people are happy (Flaubert’s error). Rather, reseaarch has shown that happy people have higher supervisor ratings, higher organizational citizenship (they help their co-workers), and earn higher income. The last finding is the result of a long term longiitudinal study by Diener, Nickerson, Lucas, and Sandvick (2002) where cheerfulness as an undergraduate was found to predict income 19 years later.

Happy people are healthier people – From his work with the CDC, he has run predictors of national life expectancy through regression analyses and found the following beta weights:

• .12-> GDP
• .01-> Health Expenditure
• .65-> Life Satisfaction

Apparently, life satisfaction shares the most unique variance with societal life expectancy.

Society CAN affect happiness – Representative samples of Danish and Togolese citizens have confirmed that almost all Danish people are happier than almost all Togolese citizens. Happiness is not just an individual phenomenon. Gallup world poll data has found that the best predictors of well being are:

• Money
• Being able to count on others
• Low corruption
• Low assault rates
• Feeling control over something
• Having learned something new recently
• Being able to use one’s talents

We currently focus government policy on some of these things without considering (or measuring) others.

He closed his talk with the following….Well Being is more than money. Obama is briefed daily about the economy using various measures…who measures well being? “Well being should be a policy imperative.”

BTW, Diener is planning on coming out with a book on Well Being and Public Policy in a few months.