"I don't think a point estimate is any way to gauge something like "happiness with respect to time." As for surveys, from what I know of the experimental literature, economists seem to put very little credence in surveys aside from gathering rather concrete data (e.g. demographics, independently verifiable data)."
Aren't political surveys generally pretty close to the results? IIRC, market researchers have some fairly sophisticated techniques for eliciting truthful info from large groups. I don't know much other than an early example had to do w/ estimating drug use by soldiers in Vietnam during the U.S.-Vietnam war. Sorry. BTW, how do we reply to the list now? I keep making new messages--can I just reply? Thanks. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003 http://search.yahoo.com/top2003