After reading Professor Andrew Oswalds recent article in The Economist about the
pathetic state of British academics in the field of economics, I looked into his
interesting April 1997 study on Happiness and Economic Performance. In that study
he offers a much-needed reminder that economic
Ed Dodson responding...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I wonder, does this mean that the primary goal of policy-makers should be full
>employment, forsaking all others? Should the goal of economic policy be the
>reduction of unhappiness? Should the members of the Federal Open Market Committee of
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (who may or may not have a regular name) wrote:
>Andrew Oswald ... April 1997 ... "Happiness and Economic Performance".
>... offers a much-needed reminder that economic growth is only a means
>to an end. Economic things (more GDP, a lower CPI, etc) only matter
>in so far as they
Two thoughts on this. First, there is a lot of interest in this topic these days. I've
been at two conferences in the last 6 months and attended two seminars here at
Brookings on this issue. The National Institute on Ageing is considering funding (may
already have done it) a major project to de
> What makes people happy?
> Should the goal of economic policy be the reduction of unhappiness?
Nobody can make you happy other than yourself, but other people can make
you unhappy, mainly by interfering in what you would prefer to do.
So the goal of economic policy should be to maximize ind
>From a lender's perspective, however, there
> is some increased risk based on lien position and whether there is real
> collateral value in the house. An appraisal is not generally cost
> effective to perform, so lenders have to rely on data that tells them
> values in a given neighborhood ar
Another ref I found is: http://wvs.isr.umich.edu/papers/genes.htm
It does a regression of nation happiness and finds "Number of years
under communist rule" and "% workforce in industrial sector" both
clearly hurt happiness. Marginally significant are "GDP/capita",
"Historically Protestant", and "
The city of san francisco has announced that it will rent out
apartments at low cost to teachers.
Question: Why not increase teacher salaries?
Answer: They can't. Gov't budgets for teachers for are maxed out,
funds for housing are earmarked for housing, not salaries (bogus answer).
Question 2:
Laugh all you want - Maryland comptroller (and former Governor) William
Schaefer is trying to track down "use tax dodgers" in MD. This is a notable
"problem" in Maryland, since we're remarkably close to Delaware--which has
no sales tax. Since I alternate back and forth between Boston and
Bal
