Exceptional Proff 520f

Happiness research for public policy and administration

Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn Rutgers University–Camden, Camden, New Jersey

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this viewpoint is to introduce happiness research for public policy and administration scholars and practitioners. It focuses on what can be useful for the discipline, provides relevant examples and presents the most recent findings and directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a combination of literature review, argumentation and illustrations. Findings – Over the past few decades, there has been a tremendous growth in happiness research, and over the past few years, this research has started addressing policy issues such as housing, transportation and inequality. Strikingly, public policy and administration discipline has failed to notice these developments. Happiness research has great potential, and it can be used in many theoretical and practical ways to advance the common good. Originality/value – Happiness is extremely important and useful for public policy and administration and yet largely overlooked in the discipline. Existing literature reviews are not written with the discipline in mind, and this viewpoint is aimed at filling this gap.

Keywords Life satisfaction, Subjective well-being, Happiness

Paper type Viewpoint

1. Introduction It is striking that search for “happiness” in two leading journals in public policy and administration, Public Administration Review (PAR) and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM), returns zero results[1]. At the same time, leading (and Nobel Prize winning) economists including Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, and politicians including French former president Nicolas Sarkozy and former UK Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell are actively pursuing the idea of using happiness for policy-making and administration (Stiglitz et al., 2009; Helliwell et al., 2012; O’Donnell et al., 2014). Somehow, the discipline has missed these developments. The goal of this viewpoint is to present some uses of happiness measures for public policy and popularise happiness research among scholars and practitioners in public policy and administration[2]. Happiness can be used as a “yardstick” to aid with public policy – this is not a new idea – it was already proposed at least as early as in 1980s (Veenhoven, 1988). It is constantly overlooked, however, that arguably the ultimate outcome of any public policy is happiness. In few cases, it is stated explicitly. One example is Bhutan, which officially tries to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The USA, to some degree, does it too – its Declaration of Independence lists “pursuit of happiness”. Yet, it is difficult to imagine a government official pondering over how some bill or policy enables this pursuit. At the same time, it is incredibly relevant for public policy and administration because for each policy, administrative action or process, the

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Received 23 September 2015 Accepted 30 November 2015

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy Vol. 10 No. 2, 2016 pp. 196-211 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1750-6166 DOI 10.1108/TG-07-2015-0030

ultimate outcome of interest, although virtually never explicitly acknowledged, is happiness.

This relationship between policy-making and happiness is depicted in a flow chart in Figure 1. Usually, we stop at the outcome of interest. Yet, the outcome of interest is only of value (with few exceptions as discussed later) if it results in happiness. Let us start with a problem that we would like to tackle with policy, say income inequality. Then, ideally based on practice and academic research, we take some action which can be also conceptualized as a sub-objective, say redistribution. This, in turn, should result in the outcome of interest: income equality. We usually stop here. We tend to forget that the ultimate outcome of interest is happiness – after all the outcome of interest is only valuable if it results in happiness[3]. To advance policy-making and administration, we should ask how much happiness policy will bring about. There are always limited resources, especially in these tough times, and there are many competing needs – education, safety, public health and so forth – one metric to help direct spending is happiness. A key advantage of the happiness yardstick is that it overcomes difficulty of measuring utility in social welfare – for instance, it helps to answer a question whether we should invest limited resources in park, bike lanes or waterfront?

2. What is happiness? Happiness is an interdisciplinary subject. It is studied most in psychology, and recently in economics. Happiness is typically measured with a survey item such as “On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the life you lead?” and it ranges from say “1 � not at all satisfied” to “4 � very satisfied”. Happiness can be defined as people’s evaluations of their lives, which include “both cognitive judgments of one’s life satisfaction in addition to affective evaluations of mood and emotions” (Steel et al., 2008). In other words, it is:

[…] overall judgment of life that draws on two sources of information: cognitive comparison with standards of the good life (contentment) and affective information from how one feels most of the time (hedonic level of affect) (Veenhoven, 2008).

Some scholars make a distinction between happiness and life satisfaction – life satisfaction refers to cognition and happiness refers to affect. For instance, life satisfaction can be conceptualized as a cognitive aspect of happiness (Dorahy et al., 1998). In practice, however, it is usually difficult if not impossible to separate the two concepts. Hence, the overall happiness definition by Veenhoven (2008), as quoted above, seems most appropriate and I will use terms “happiness” and “life satisfaction” interchangeably.

The happiness measure, even though self-reported and subjective, is reliable (precision varies) and valid (Myers, 2000; Di Tella and MacCulloch, 2006). The survey-based life satisfaction measure is closely correlated with similar objective measures such as brain waves (Layard, 2005). Unhappiness strongly correlates with suicide incidence and mental health problems (Bray and Gunnell, 2006). Happiness not only correlates highly with other non-self-reported measures, but also does not correlate

Figure 1. An outcome line

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with measures that are not theoretically related to it: happiness has discriminant validity (Sandvik et al., 1993). Finally, to be clear, I discuss here general/overall happiness, not a domain-specific happiness such as neighbourhood or community satisfaction. The concept of happiness is intuitively understood by almost everyone (Clark et al., 2008). For a more recent and very thorough statement of happiness measure validity and reliability, see Diener (2009, especially chap. 5). Likewise, Diener (2009) provides a good discussion of why potential problems with happiness are not serious enough to make it unusable for public policy – see especially Chapter 6. These potential problems include genetic determination of happiness (Lykken and Tellegen, 1996), adaptation (Brickman et al., 1978) and various comparisons (Michalos, 1985).

Fundamentally, happiness can be a touchstone of morality – what makes us happy is morally good – it is utilitarianism (but also to some degree consequentialism) that originated during the Enlightenment in eighteenth century in Europe. Yet, not everything that makes us happy is the right thing to do, and sometimes we need to do what makes us unhappy to become happy in the long run. For instance, having children may not result in happiness or even result in unhappiness (Veenhoven and Ehrhardt, 1995; Doss et al., 2009), yet a policy promoting no children would result in extinction of the population in the area covered by such policy. A typical example of short-run happiness and long-run misery is overuse of pleasure-inducing chemicals such as tobacco, alcohol and other recreational drugs (Linden, 2011). But there are also less obviously harmful factors that make us happy in the short run such as same-race preference (Vogt Yuan, 2007; Postmes and Branscombe, 2002). This problem of visible short-run happiness, but unclear long-run misery, is called aggregation bias – each donut or cigarette makes sense, it makes me happy – but aggregated together they cause poor health or even death – the problem is that we do not see it.

While most variables have a consistent effect on happiness, e.g. employment, health and income have consistently positive effect on happiness[4], many variables work differently depending on a person – for instance, working longer hours makes Europeans unhappy, but Americans happy (Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2011b), Europeans are unhappy about inequality but Americans appear relatively immune to it (Alesina et al., 2004), Americans are unhappy in big cities but East Asians are relatively happy there (Berry and Okulicz-Kozaryn 2009). Many of these differences are cultural, or more fundamentally speaking, situational – people simply function very differently in different situations. This is so called “situationism”, the founding principle of social psychology (Fiske, 2009). In short, happiness gained from different actions differs across individuals and situations, and this is a key area for the future research – we already know what makes most people happy or what makes people happy on average – now we need to find out what makes specific persons happy in specific situations.

Finally, happiness is not only a desirable outcome of interest, but it also predicts other desirable outcomes of interest: life expectancy, morbidity, productivity, quitting, absenteeism, unemployment duration and marriage duration (Clark, 2008). No wonder we can observe now a “happiness industry” – governments and businesses – embrace happiness to advance their own goals (Davies, 2015). Happiness predicts outcomes of key policy value, such as fertility (Le Moglie et al., 2015). For a historical overview of happiness – how it evolved over centuries and how different cultures approached it – see McMahon (2006). For a cross-sectional overview – how happiness differs across

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geographic areas and cultures – see Diener and Suh (2003). Happiness, as any measure, has limitations. Limitations mostly pertain to subjective nature of happiness, for instance, people’s evaluations are influenced to some degree (not too much) by culture, social norms, etc. (Diener and Suh, 2003), but also happiness is relative at least to some degree and it often bounces back to the so-called set point (Lucas et al., 2006), even if one wins a lottery or loses a leg (Brickman et al., 1978). Much of the happiness is genetically determined (Lykken and Tellegen, 1996). Hence, it is important to keep in mind that not all happiness can be determined by policy or even personal choices. Finally, what we report in happiness surveys is not necessarily exactly precisely how we feel. Fortunately, such errors are quite small – for discussion, see Diener and Suh (2003). Furthermore, these limitations are not critical, that is, policy still does influence happiness greatly – for discussion, see Diener (2009), especially Chapter 6 “Issues Regarding the Use of Well-Being Measures for Policy” on p. 95.

3. Quality of life or livability and happiness Policy, administration, and especially planning or even architecture scholars study quality of life (QOL). QOL is usually defined in a narrow sense as the quality of transportation or housing or some other domain; often it is a per capita or per area indicator such as physicians per capita or bike lanes per square mile. Objective QOL or livability is not the same as happiness or subjective well-being (Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2011a). Objective indicators, such as one-day popular United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) and still popular components of the index: education, income and life expectancy, are not to be replaced by happiness but supplemented. An advantage of happiness is that it is an overall measure in the sense that it captures (imperfectly, of course) everything that affects our lives.

There is an inherent problem in calculating QOL, livability or recently popular lists of “best places to live” such as Mercer’s Quality of Living Rankings or the Economist’s Best cities ranking[5]. Simply, there are many components of the rankings – political and social environment, public services and transport, consumer goods and so forth – and the problem is how to aggregate them to come up with the overall ranking. It is usually done by some experts who would weigh, say, safety to be twice as important as education and 1.3 times as important as health care, and so on, and however accurate these may be on average (even perfectly accurate), by no means this is closely corresponding to each person’s own individual weighting that is vastly different from another person’s weighting. Even relatively simple and obvious factors such as income and health are weighted quite differently, not to mention other factors like bike lanes vs highways, where there is an obvious conflict. This is an amazing advantage of happiness metric, because it takes into account each person’s own weighting (for more discussion see Diener, 2009; Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2011a). Another problem of using indices of factors affecting well-being is that there are too many such factors, in fact, an uncountable number; and that is the advantage of the happiness yardstick that it takes into account known and unknown factors. Again, the happiness yardstick has its limitations, but these limitations being different from limitations of other measures, happiness provides additional information – again, the idea is not to replace other indicators, but complement them.

Finally, to be clear, it is not necessarily the goal of the government to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number (in the Benthamite spirit)[6], but it is

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definitely the goal of the government to make the pursuit of happiness possible. In other words, equal opportunity (to achieve happiness) should be a human right, protected by government even in America that is relatively not unhappy about inequality (Bartels, 2009; Alesina et al., 2004). Furthermore, it is arguably the government’s role to prevent unhappiness or misery such as that resulting from poverty or unemployment. There are many more examples of adversities that arguably result in unhappiness and that governments should tackle – for example, see The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Assembly, 1948). In general, an important role of the government is to take care of mental health of its citizens – the World Health Organization estimates that in the decades to come, depression will become the second most frequent cause of disability in the world (cited in Diener, 2009, p. 66). By preventing misery such as poverty, unemployment and depression, governments can increase happiness, and most importantly, happiness can be used to measure the progress that governments are making.

4. Away from misery, towards constructive thinking using the happiness yardstick Much of public policy (and to lesser degree public administration) scholarship is about misery and human suffering. Examples include segregation, discrimination, inequality, lack of social justice, public mismanagement, lack of engagement and crime. There are good reasons to study the dark side of human experience because a fundamental role of the government is to prevent it. Yet, this focus on the negative goes beyond a technical study of a problem at hand and gets into an overall pessimism. For instance, much of the scholarship is simply complaining and pinpointing the problems and disasters, and then, further contemplates the failure of public policy to fix these problems. We tend to focus on what does not work as opposed to having a constructive discussion of what should be done and what works. This overall powerlessness and pessimism is further successfully instilled into our students, so that by the time they graduate, they turn from enthusiastic to cynical about the world. We need to change the approach and constructively find out what should be done. Happiness research can help by showing what makes people happy, and illuminating why people behave the way they do – people almost always do what they think will make them happy, but often (predictably) end up unhappy.

The public policy and administration pessimism is very akin to that in sociology or psychology. Sociologists are interested in social problems and human misery. A similar preoccupation exists in psychology, much of which is about mental problems such as depression, but this preoccupation with the negative was recently countered by “positive psychology” movement led by Marin Seligman (Seligman et al., 2005; Diener and Seligman, 2002, 2004; Seligman, 2004).

To be sure, much of this negative attitude in public policy and administration is for good reason: economists and business people take a different and positive perspective and often miss problems that we notice, so yes, we should complain to keep the balance. However, the point is that we complain too much, and too often, we complain for the sake of complaining and we fail to be constructive. We should be constructive – and this is where the happiness yardstick comes in – it is a metric to identify key problems and track progress on solving them. One finding from the happiness research is of key importance to the field of public policy and administration: people often do not know

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what will make them happy, that is, they often make wrong decisions. It follows that there is a role for policymakers to nudge[7] people in the right direction, because people are (predictably) irrational (Ariely, 2009). In other words, policymakers can use happiness research findings to help people make the right decisions. The right decision is a decision that will make a person happy, and again, strikingly often, people make wrong decisions. Happiness is a useful measure – often better than people’s preferences – again people often do not know what will make them happy. A useful concept of expected vs experienced utility (Kahneman et al., 1997) helps to illustrate it in Figure 2. We decide on much of our consumption (cars, houses, etc.) and income (how hard and how long to work) based on expected utility (or happiness) – and we are often (predictably) wrong – we think that higher income and consumption will make us happier than they actually do. A related explanation can be advanced in terms of income or consumption aspirations in Figure 3. Income increases happiness given some aspirations, but as we increase our income, aspirations curve shifts from A1 to A2, and hence, the resulting happiness is lower than expected.

5. Specific policies that matter for happiness: some illustrative findings The extant scholarship about happiness and policy almost exclusively considers national and international policy. There is a need for research at a more local level and not only about policy-making (drafting law), but also about day-to-day administration, for instance, how local bureaucracy affects happiness. Still, many of the findings at the

Figure 2. Expected vs

experienced utility or happiness

Figure 3. Income (or

consumption) and life satisfaction (or

happiness) given aspirations

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national level are likely to hold at the local level. A list of findings presented here is illustrative only (for an attempt to make an exhaustive list see Veenhoven, 1995). Quality of governance matters more than many people realize. Good governance makes people happy (Helliwell and Huang, 2008; Helliwell, 2014), and in fact, there is some evidence that governance may be more important than economic growth (Helliwell, 2014). Again, the idea is that the Government should help people make right choices, nudge them in the right direction. The Government should help citizens attain greater happiness without paternalism, only by helping people make better and informed choices (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008). Furthermore, people are already happy to be a part of democratic process: happiness and direct democracy (referenda) are positively related. Direct democracy makes citizens happier than non-citizens – it is not the policy outcome that matters (foreigners usually cannot be excluded), but the process of participating in decision-making itself (Frey and Stutzer, 2000).

Which specific policies make us happy? Welfare (Pacek and Radcliff, 2008a, 2008b), lack of inequality (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010) and progressive taxation (Oishi et al., 2012) boost happiness. Yet, liberals favouring those very policies are unhappy (Napier and Jost, 2008). That is, liberal countries, but conservative persons, are happy (Okulicz-Kozaryn et al., 2014). The happiest countries in the world, Scandinavian countries, are welfare states. Moreover, there is some evidence that people were happier under communism than in market economy in Eastern Europe (Easterlin, 2009), arguably due to welfare and safety net under communism. Decommodification, the degree to which a person is not a commodity in a market economy, predicts happiness (Pacek and Radcliff, 2008a, 2008b)[8]. Similar conclusions follow from a recent study by researchers at Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Boarini et al., 2013) – unemployment benefits and employment protection boost happiness and out-of-pocket health expenses depress it. These findings have specific implications for public policy. The current health reform in the USA, the so-called “Obama Care”, should increase the overall happiness[9].

On the other hand, welfare state is not necessarily effective – we can spend the tax money, redistribute income and generate public goods, but they may not result in improved QOL and hence may not improve happiness (Veenhoven, 2000; Bjornskov et al., 2007). Monopolism of the state can drive out other welfare services – monopoly can become a toy of politicians, not necessarily economically reasonable and efficient (Veenhoven and Ehrhardt, 1995). For instance, according to Thomson Reuters, US health-care system wastes $600-850bn every year due to inefficient administration (Fox, 2009). Welfare state may decrease people’s motivation – income redistribution may reduce economic growth and people are happier in wealthier nations than in welfare nations (Veenhoven and Ehrhardt, 1995). Bjornskov et al. (2007) show that happiness decreases with the size of the government analyzing World Values Survey data in a cross-section of 74 countries. Government officials aim to be re-elected, not to run the country as they should (Park, 1915). According to public choice theory, politicians are sensitive to special interest groups and to lobbyists, and hence, their actions have little to do with efficiency (Becker, 1983).

A key policy issue is that of income inequality – there seems to be a sense that things are going in the wrong direction[10], and it is a reasonable argument to make that growing income inequality is at least partly responsible for it. There is also a great deal of attention given to income inequality among academics (for reviews and in-depth treatments of income

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inequality, see Piketty, 2014; Frank, 2012; Krueger, 2012; Oishi et al., 2012; Piketty et al., 2011; Kondo et al., 2009; Bartels, 2009; Kawachi and Kennedy, 2006; Marmot, 2005; Lynch et al., 2004; Marmot, 2004; Piketty and Saez, 2003; Csikszentmihalyi, 1999; Sen, 1992). Happiness research can be used to learn more about income inequality. A key finding is that there are diminishing marginal returns from income to happiness. Across countries, regions or persons, the relationship between income and happiness is quadratic (Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2012), that is, there are diminishing returns from income to happiness. Hence, income has higher payoff in happiness for the poor than for the rich. This pattern is intuitive – think of taking away $10,000 from a person who makes $250,000 and giving it to a person who makes $25,000 – the rich person would barely feel any difference and the poor person would be thrilled. Same should be true when you think of local government – redistributing several million from a wealthy Greenwich CT to poor Camden NJ should result in greater happiness[11]. A typical argument not to redistribute is of killing the goose laying golden eggs. But Piketty et al. (2011) have recently calculated that we can tax the rich as high as 80 per cent and they would still work hard and be fine. In short, happiness (and other research) mostly points to an overall beneficial (but weak) effect of income redistribution.

Yet surprisingly, simply giving money to the poor does not appear to result in greater happiness. A recent experiment in the UK provided money and training for two years to a randomly selected group of people in need. After five years (three years after the end of intervention) the treatment group (people who received the money) ended up poorer and less happy than the control group (people who did not receive any extra government assistance) (Oswald, 2014). In a similar fashion, lottery winners do not end up being happier (Brickman et al., 1978). Perhaps, especially if unearned, money corrupts. A solution then appears to redistribute money with strings attached, for instance, pay for effort as in American Earned Income Tax Credit. Another illustrative finding is that of consumption. For most people, house is the biggest purchase they ever make and Americans tend to prefer big houses, but to afford them they need to commute longer distance. Will it result in happiness? No. We get used to big houses, but not to commute (Stutzer and Frey, 2003; Kahneman et al., 2004). Any luxury consumption (not only big houses) is not likely to result in lasting happiness because luxuries are positional goods – you buy them to have a better position in a society, or to show that you are better than others – not to have a better QOL. The problem with positional goods is that acquiring them leads to consumption arms’ race. You cannot win such race, because you are on hedonic treadmill. Even worse, we adapt to luxuries such as big houses – these do not make us any happier after some time, and in a vicious cycle, we desire ever bigger houses. But we do not adapt to commuting, which consistently makes us unhappy (Frank, 2005).

Another example is unemployment, one of the strongest determinants of happiness. Unemployment affects happiness net of income, that is, unemployment makes a person more unhappy than just loss of income. Furthermore, we do not adapt to unemployment (Lucas et al., 2006). This finding strongly supports policies aimed at prevention or lessening of consequences of unemployment. Last, but not the least, arguably the biggest challenge for human species, and hence public policy and administration at all levels is that of pollution and sustainability. A recent report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is alarming (Pachauri et al., 2014). Indeed, a threat is serious enough that claims for not growing the economy anymore or even “degrowing” it appear reasonable (Kallis et al., 2012)[12]. Happiness research has something to contribute here as well. First, pollution makes us unhappy (Weinhold, 2012; Welsch, 2005). Second, and more important, there is some evidence that happy people are more sustainable, that is,

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happiness affects sustainability (Ericson et al., 2014). Causation possibly goes in the other direction as well (as noted by authors), but in general, it is safe to say that happiness and sustainable behaviour are correlated (Brown and Kasser, 2005; Corral-Verdugo et al., 2011).

For more examples of uses of happiness for public policy and administration, see a dedicated section III of Diener (2009) and see the following articles: Layard (2006), Helliwell (2014), Bjornskov et al. (2008), Layard (2006), Oishi et al. (2012), Diener (2009), Csikszentmihalyi (2000), Myers (1988), Veenhoven (2000, 2012). There are several key readings about policy and happiness that may be unfamiliar to public policy and administration audience – these are great references for a reader who would like to learn more. First, there are general reports: Helliwell et al. (2012), United Nations (2012), O’Donnell et al. (2014), Stiglitz et al. (2009), where Stiglitz et al. (2009) is probably most useful. Helliwell (2014) is itself a list (in Appendix 1) of further readings about governance and happiness. Veenhoven (2012) lists many useful findings about happiness based on World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven, 1995)[13]. Other useful readings specifically about happiness and policy-making include work by economists (Layard, 2006; Helliwell, 2014; Bjornskov et al., 2008) and psychologists (Oishi et al., 2012; Diener, 2009; Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Myers, 1988). Diener (2009) is a book dedicated specifically to the topic of happiness and public policy.

6. Conclusion Recall the outcome line showing happiness as the ultimate goal of public policy and administration in Figure 1. One does not have to fully subscribe to Benthamite “greatest happiness for greatest number” to find value in happiness research. The weaker form of utilitarianism is enough – it can be put in words of Newt Gingrich: people deserve “not happiness stamps; not a department of happiness; not therapy for happiness. Pursuit” (quoted in Brooks, 2008). Furthermore, even if one does not see happiness as the goal (utilitarianism) or pursuit of happiness as the goal (weak form of utilitarianism), happiness has many objectively positive consequences. Happy people are healthier, more productive, more environmentally sustainable, have more social capital and are more peace oriented (Corral-Verdugo et al., 2011; Lyubomirsky et al., 2005; Diener, 2009). In short, happiness is a yardstick for broadly understood progress.

The scientific study of happiness is now taking place since several decades in psychology and economics, other fields such as sociology and management are slowly joining, and recently, studies specifically focusing on public policy are being published. Even OECD and the UK Government have recently joined the debate. Yet, these developments are happening without public policy and administration scholars. There is always path dependency – tendency to do research in an old-fashioned manner using familiar concepts. But perhaps a key obstacle preventing public policy and administration scholars from embracing happiness is their peculiar attention to, or indeed obsession with, the negative: problems, difficulties and disasters. Somehow human flourishing and well-being are not in the discipline’s vocabulary. Fixing problems and dealing with misery would at best bring a neutral state – such an approach does not aim for anything better. It is time to change it, especially that happiness research is maturing now in other fields and we already know surprisingly a great deal. It is time to use this knowledge and expand it further with public policy and administration in mind. This viewpoint hopes to challenge the status quo and

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popularize the happiness research in public policy and administration. For further readings and data sources see Appendix 1.

Notes 1. Of course, it is debatable what a leading journal is. Claim here is only made that PAR or JPAM

is one of the leading journals, not the leading journal. Search was conducted in June 2014 using Google Scholar. There were several articles that used term “happiness” in their text – these articles were not, however, even remotely concerned with using happiness measures for public policy and administration. It is disturbing because leading journals in other social science fields publish studies about happiness in sociology, political science, economics and, of course, in psychology. Even the leading general interest journals such as Science publish happiness studies. Furthermore, scholars in other disciplines already use happiness measures specifically for public policy and administration – for instance, economists (Layard, 2006; Helliwell, 2014; Bjornskov et al., 2008; Layard, 2006), psychologists (Oishi et al., 2012; Diener, 2009; Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Myers, 1988), a sociologist (Veenhoven, 2000, 2012) and recently, researchers working at policy-making institutions such as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Boarini et al., 2013; Fleche et al., 2011).

2. For simplicity, I will often use term “public policy” only, but I mean “public policy and administration”. Likewise, I will use “scholars” only, but I mean “scholars and practitioners”.

3. There are few exceptions to this rule as discussed later; and happiness is not the only outcome of interest, especially in the short run; indeed, we may often need to sacrifice happiness in the short run to achieve in the long run – for instance save, invest, postpone consumption and work hard to be happy later.

4. For a recent review clearly summarizing domain findings, see Dolan et al. (2008), and even more complete World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven, 1995).

5. For detailed description of the two rankings, see Okulicz-Kozaryn (2011a).

6. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a British philosopher, is a founder of moral utilitarianism – an idea that what makes us happy is the right thing to do. It follows, according to this doctrine, that the role of the public policy should be to maximize the happiness, that is, governments should produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

7. Also, see a related book under the same title: Thaler and Sunstein (2008).

8. The decommodification captures three dimensions: (1) the ease of access to welfare, (2) welfare value and (3) breadth of coverage. The key welfare programmes captured in this index are pensions, sickness benefits and unemployment compensation.

9. It is another issue that the health-care cost will bankrupt the USA if it keeps on rising at the current rate.

10. Respondents were asked questions such as “In general, do you think things in the nation are headed in the right direction, or have they gotten off on the wrong track?” “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?” – and majority, usually two-thirds say that things are going in the wrong direction, and this is much more pessimistic point of view in recent several years than earlier PollingReport.com (2014) or Schapiro (2014).

11. On the other hand, Americans are unusually income-inequality resistant – for a review, see Bartels (2009), and accordingly, whether inequality causes misery, is disputed – much

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supportive evidence presented in Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) was criticized by Snowdon (2010). Finally, people get used to conditions, both affluence and misery (Sen 1992). For more criticism of the idea that inequality leads to unhappiness, see Veenhoven (2005), Berg and Veenhoven (2010).

12. Although it is not immediately obvious what is the best strategy to achieve greater sustainability – degrowth (Kallis, 2011) or simply public policy (Van den Bergh, 2011) – for more discussion, see Daly (2013), Kallis et al. (2012).

13. World Database of Happiness is a database of literature, finding and data sets pertaining to happiness – while incomplete and little clunky, it is the most comprehensive single source of scientific knowledge about happiness.

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Appendix 1. Policy initiatives and datasets What are some policy initiatives and measures used? Happiness is already studied with focus on policy-making, but at the international level by OECD (www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/), at the national level by the UK Office of National Statistics (www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/people-places/ communities/societal-wellbeing) and in the USA, Gallup tracks happiness daily (www.gallup.com/ poll/106915/gallup-daily-us-mood.aspx), but Gallup data are not very useful because they are not free.

London School of Economics and Political Science has a website listing some research on this topic, mostly by its health economist Paul Dolan and labour economist Richard Layard at: http:// cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/research/wellbeing/happiness.asp. Dutch EHERO (Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization) also aims at public policy, yet also without input from public policy and administration scholars (www.eur.nl/english/ehero/). Brookings Institution in the person of Carol Graham is involved in an effort to produce better happiness indicators and policy.

There are already measures of overall well-being representative of counties – easy-to-use health indicators at county level in the USA are available at www.countyhealthrankings.org, much of which is based on The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) from the USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov/brfss/), where there is a happiness measure available, and these data are representative of counties or metropolitan areas and can be readily used by local policymakers to measure how we are doing. BRFSS is an excellent example of data representative of counties. There are also a plenty of person-level data sets that have shed light on what makes people happy, and hence, indicate how public policy and administration can improve happiness – for a review of major datasets see http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/

Corresponding author Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn can be contacted at: adam.okulicz.kozaryn@gmail.com

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