Economics focus: The joyless or the jobless
Should governments pursue happiness rather than economic growth?
IN 2006 Richard Layard, an economist at the London School of Economics, argued that unhappiness was a bigger social problem in Britain than unemployment. In the “Depression Report”, which he co-wrote, Lord Layard pointed out that more people were claiming incapacity benefits because of depression and other mental disorders than were on the dole.
The subsequent recession fixed that. The jobless now outnumber the joyless—there is nothing like a drop in GDP to remind everyone how much this much-maligned metric matters. But despite the economic gloom, economists and policymakers have not lost their interest in happiness. This month David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, asked the Office of National Statistics to measure the country’s “general well-being”, as part of his promise to focus on GWB not just GDP. …
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