IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v14y2013i1p353-361.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Americans Value Happiness, But Block Required Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Ott

Abstract

In his book “The Politics of Happiness” Derek Bok argues that happiness should be a goal in public policy. He presents an inventory of social problems in the US with negative effects on happiness, like inadequate education, chronic pain, sleep disorders, depressions, divorce, single-parent families, and financial hardship. He presents interesting options to deal with these problems. He also pays attention to some more general happiness-issues for US-policymakers, like the question of economic growth without happiness and the reputation of the US-government. Bok’s findings are consistent with available data about the high levels of negative feelings in the US: stress, depressions, sadness, anger and worry. His message is quite clear: policy-makers can use the findings of happiness-research to improve their decisions. Copyright The Author(s) 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Ott, 2013. "Americans Value Happiness, But Block Required Policies," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 353-361, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:1:p:353-361
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-012-9328-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10902-012-9328-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-012-9328-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Weiting Ng & Ed Diener & Raksha Aurora & James Harter, 2009. "Affluence, Feelings of Stress, and Well-being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 94(2), pages 257-271, November.
    3. Jan Ott, 2010. "Good Governance and Happiness in Nations: Technical Quality Precedes Democracy and Quality Beats Size," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 353-368, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2018. "Assessing well-being in European regions. Does government quality matter?," Working Papers 2018/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    2. Gregor Gonza & Anže Burger, 2017. "Subjective Well-Being During the 2008 Economic Crisis: Identification of Mediating and Moderating Factors," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1763-1797, December.
    3. Daniel L. Bennett & Boris Nikolaev, 2017. "Economic Freedom & Happiness Inequality: Friends Or Foes?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 373-391, April.
    4. Cordero, José Manuel & Salinas-Jiménez, Javier & Salinas-Jiménez, M Mar, 2017. "Exploring factors affecting the level of happiness across countries: A conditional robust nonparametric frontier analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 663-672.
    5. John F. Helliwell & Lara B. Aknin & Hugh Shiplett & Haifang Huang & Shun Wang, 2017. "Social Capital and Prosocial Behaviour as Sources of Well-Being," NBER Working Papers 23761, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Paleologou, Suzanna-Maria, 2022. "Happiness, democracy and socio-economic conditions: Evidence from a difference GMM estimator," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. Helliwell, John F. & Huang, Haifang & Grover, Shawn & Wang, Shun, 2018. "Empirical linkages between good governance and national well-being," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1332-1346.
    8. Roma Debnath & Ravi Shankar, 2014. "Does Good Governance Enhance Happiness: A Cross Nation Study," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(1), pages 235-253, March.
    9. Désiré Avom & Itchoko M. M. Mwa Ndjokou & Pierre C. Tsopmo & Cherif Abdramane & Simplice A. Asongu, 2024. "Duration in Power and Happiness in the World," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 24/033, African Governance and Development Institute..
    10. John F. Helliwell & Haifang Huang & Shawn Grover & Shun Wang, 2014. "Empirical Linkages between Good Government and National Well-being," NBER Working Papers 20686, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jingmei Li & Shaofei Yu & Zhihua Xu, 2023. "Does environmental pollution weaken the positive effect of government public expenditure on residents’ subjective well-being? A case study in China," Energy & Environment, , vol. 34(4), pages 927-945, June.
    12. Senik, Claudia, 2009. "Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 408-424, October.
    13. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    14. Tofallis, Chris, 2020. "Which formula for national happiness?," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    15. Stefano Bartolini & Francesco Sarracino, 2021. "Happier and Sustainable. Possibilities for a post-growth society," Department of Economics University of Siena 855, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    16. Hong, Yan-Zhen & Su, Yi-Ju & Chang, Hung-Hao, 2023. "Analyzing the relationship between income and life satisfaction of Forest farm households - a behavioral economics approach," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    17. Yu-Chuan Chen & Yung-Ho Chiu & Tzu-Han Chang & Tai-Yu Lin, 2023. "Sustainable Development, Government Efficiency, and People’s Happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 1549-1578, April.
    18. Krzysztof Zagórski, 2011. "Income and Happiness in Time of Post-Communist Modernization," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 331-349, November.
    19. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter, 2011. "Does relative income matter for the very poor? Evidence from rural Ethiopia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 213-215, March.
    20. Che-Yuan Liang, 2017. "Optimal inequality behind the veil of ignorance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 431-455, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:1:p:353-361. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.