The Origins of Happiness

Notes to Pages 204–220

Krueger and colleagues have proposed, we could then rate an episode
as miserable if the most powerful negative emotion was more powerful
than the most positive emotion (Krueger, Kahneman, Schkade, et al.
[2009]). From this we could find what fraction of the day each person
spent being miserable— what they called the person’s “misery” index
or U- index. And we could make the average misery index into our mea-
sure of social welfare. Such an exercise, however, is very data intensive
and requires the collection of time- use data.

14. These are real amounts (inflation adjusted).


15. Stern (2007) argues that 1.5% is too high.


16. See Broome (2004).


17. Layard and D. M. Clark (2014).


18. Ludwig et al. (2012); Ludwig et al. (2013); Kling, Ludwig, and
    Katz (2005); Chetty, Hendren, and Katz (2016).


19. Data from Lawrence Katz of Harvard University.


20. Cattaneo et al. (2009).


21. Odermatt and Stutzer (2015).


22. Ward (2015).

Chapter 16. The Origins of Happiness

1. Layard and D. M. Clark (2014).


2. The figure is roughly 2% in the United States; see Table 2.2 and
   online Descriptive Statistics. See also the Gallup Daily Poll.


3. Since the Phillips curve is nonlinear, economic fluctuations
   lead to higher average unemployment rates over the cycle, if the in-
   flation rate is not to increase. In addition, income growth adds less to
   happiness than falls in income decrease happiness, De Neve, Ward, De
   Keulenaer, et al. (forthcoming).


4. For a discussion of this complicated issue, see Chapter 3.


5. Now known as Understanding Society.


6. We use the cross- sections because the results of panel studies
   are more biased toward zero by measurement error and by problems of
   exact timing. The cross- sectional data are also somewhat biased toward
   zero by measurement error but are biased away from zero by the omis-
   sion of key variables.


7. The BHPS uses a range of 1– 7, but these figures have been trans-
   formed to a scale of 0– 10. For the distribution of life- satisfaction in the
   BCS, see Chapter 1.


8. 0.18 (0.7). See online Full Table 16.2.