Human Development Reports - United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Workshop on Well-being, Happiness and the Environment

Stirling, UK
8-9 April 2010

This will be a two-day workshop, held on 8-9 April 2010, at the University of Stirling. The organisers are Nick Hanley and Mirko Moro, who thank SIRE for financial support.

Participants

Speakers include

Call for papers

The workshop is open to applied, theoretical and methodological contributions. Please submit your abstract by8th March 2010 to Mirko Moro. Acceptance of papers will be notified by email shortly after the deadline (beginning of third week of March).

Aim

The principal aim of this workshop is to assess the contribution of the recent economic literature that links directly self reported measures of mental health, life satisfaction or happiness to environmental quality. What can we learn on the relationship between environment and well-being from this literature? Can this data be used to inform cost benefit analyses and public policies?

Economists’ views seem to diverge greatly:

"The life-satisfaction approach expands economists’ toolbox in the area of non-market valuation" (Luechinger, 2009).

"[The life satisfaction approach] it is unlikely to be generally useful as an everyday cost-benefit tool […]" (Levinson, 2009).

"[…] I am “unhappy” with happiness economics […]. It is amazing to me that the best economics journals have devoted so much attention to […] rather 'silly analyses' " (Smith, 2008).

"[…] it may be possible to identify the effects on happiness of some particularly important factors.[…] But this approach seems unlikely to be feasible for causal factors which operate on a smaller scale." (Kahneman and Sugden, 2005).

The workshop will be giving special attention to:

• the promotion of an ample and informed debate on the validity of the life satisfaction approach in eliciting preferences towards the environment;
• the policy implications arising from the current literature;
• the relationship between the life-satisfaction approach and standard methods used in analysing preferences towards public goods.
• the methodological and statistical issues to limit biases in survey methodologies and parameter estimation (e.g., endogeneity, measurement errors of variables, GIS techniques for happiness research).

Expenses

Two nights' accommodation will be paid for and consideration given to a travel bursary for presenters with no travel budget.

Further information

Click here for further information. If you have any queries, please contact Mirko Moro.

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