Brookings Mountain West presents “Applying Well-Being Metrics to Public Policy: Lessons from Experiments around the World” a talk by Carol Graham, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development' Charles Robinson Chair in Foreign Policy Studies.

The ongoing research activity of economists who study what constitutes happiness and make recommendations to governments about how best to increase it continues to receive global attention. The recent publication of the first World Happiness Report, commissioned for the United Nations General Assembly, argues that happiness can be measured objectively; that it differs systematically across societies and over time; that happiness has predictable causes and is correlated to specific things (such as wealth, income distribution, health, and political institutions); and government has the ability to create the right conditions for happiness to flourish. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, meanwhile, has tasked a panel of experts (of which the author is a member) to explore which well-being metrics are most relevant for our own statistics. This presentation will highlight the metrics used to evaluate well-being or happiness and explore implications for public policy and global economy.