Well-being and public policy (Economics)

How can we use well-being as a measure of society’s progress? Professor Andrew Oswald and team have been working to calculate the societal benefits of increased well-being. Professor Oswald has developed measures of well-being and explored how happiness is determined by personal circumstances and economic factors. His research has demonstrated that well-being levels are affected by factors relating to physical health, happiness affects economic outcomes and people are happier when inflation and unemployment are low.

The importance of measuring well-being for policy and scientific purposes is now widely accepted. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) now collects data on key well-being indicators.

Policy documents from a wide range of organisations cite Professor Oswald’s findings. These include the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, the Department for Work and Pensions, Public Health England, the Scottish Government and the Inter-American Development Bank. Oswald’s research has also informed work on well-being at the European Commission.

https://warwick.ac.uk/research/impact/social-sciences/economics/happiness-health-society