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Last night's debate on happiness
It was Jeffrey Sachs and Betsey Stevenson against myself and Will Wilkinson on the topic of whether America is failing in the pursuit of happiness. The Economist magazine was the sponsor and it was held in Gotham Hall in New York, which yes could have been out of a Batman movie.
As I had expected, Will proved to be the world's best debating partner, or at least in the top two (my previous debate partner was Randall Kroszner, for a year in high school).
The initial tally of sentiment was about 67-33 in favor of the Sachs-Stevenson position that America is indeed failing at the pursuit of happiness. By the end of the debate there was a slight margin in favor of the Cowen-Wilkinson position. The crowd turned, I believe, in part because Sachs pursued attacks on the current administration rather than focusing on the defined topic at hand. He was rendered shrill by the unholy madness of something or other, as Brad DeLong would put it. Will and I don't like current policy either, but we looked happy. We were happy. We are happy. We also had a long array of facts and citations from the happiness literature and some pointed rebuttals to the so-called Easterlin paradox.
Many loyal MR readers were there, so of course your impressions are invited, even if you don't usually leave comments. Who else is to tell this story if not you? Expect to see reports on Will's blog and by Felix Salmon as well.
Addendum: Here is Will, Tyrone may weigh in soon.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 11, 2007 at 07:00 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
"but we looked happy."
So, you're saying, style counted over substance? Snark!
Posted by: That Guy at Nov 11, 2007 7:14:12 AM
Any way we can get an online recording? Sounds interesting.
Posted by: JH at Nov 11, 2007 8:24:55 AM
Your divorce rate says you're not happy - or, at least, not happy with each other.
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 11, 2007 9:21:37 AM
And I suppose that your remarriage rate confirms that you're optimistic.
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 11, 2007 9:23:21 AM
Overall, the debate went very well and it was well worth 30 dollars. Some observations....
The topic was too broad. I often found the two sides debating two different topics. "Is America failing at the pursuit of happiness" leaves a lot of wiggle room.
On the debaters:
Betsy Stevenson started off. Her voice was tinny and her rhetorical style seemed like something you would see/read in a highschool debate/paper. I had trouble hearing her all night long - except near the end where she nearly came undone, dropping bottles and even interrupting the other side at one point...
Jeffrey Sachs pulled no punches. He went straight to the jungular like some crazy left wing lunatic. He should write for the Daily Kos. Alas, unlike Betsy, you could actually hear what he was saying and he got some good points in. But overall, his argumentative style was not substantive, he tried to appeal to peoples' dislike of Bush and current politics.
Wil Wilkinson was by far the best debater. The quickest on his feet, most forceful, and most articulate. However, he did make some references that the vast majority of folks did not get, like a reference to cats causing schizophrenia... Also, he admitted that places like Sweden are ok despite the fact that they are nanny states. This seemed to cause tremendous delight to Jeffrey Sachs who spent the rest of the evening pointing out that someone from the Cato Institute said that a nanny state was not so bad.
Lastly, Tyler Cowen. He is much more low key than I thought he would be. Although it was hard to hear him at times because of this, it proved to make him more compelling because he did not seem as rabid as the opposing side. He used several of Betsy's own research points against her which was slick.
I went with a fairly large group of people and afterwards we went to get some beer and food. My final observation is this:
If you were not a rabid idealogue than Tyler and Wil, by far, did a more convincing job. Nearly all those at my table who did not have strong held views at the beginning came away agreeing with Tyler and Wil and even some of those who had strongly held views ended up agreeing with Tyler and Will.
Good Job! Hope to see more debates!
Posted by: RobertV at Nov 11, 2007 9:56:37 AM
Tyler, you and Will were fantastic! You bested the oppositions in every way--by keeping your cool and not resorting to dirty tactics like INTERRUPTING people and accusing them of moral depravity (*cough* *cough* Jeffrey Sachs).
And, of course, you had the facts on your side.
Posted by: Columbia Girl at Nov 11, 2007 9:57:35 AM
Sad to have missed this. Sadder still that you omitted the gory details. Is there not a web video? Podcast? Transcript? Summary story in the Economist?
Posted by: Chris Blattman at Nov 11, 2007 10:07:34 AM
Audio of some past debates is here:
http://www.economist.com/audio/?ps=other
Not sure if they will post this debate or not...
Posted by: Anon at Nov 11, 2007 10:24:33 AM
*sigh*. As a (relative) leftist myself, I have to ask why is it that in these sort of debates, the left side always goes rabid? Do the debate organizers deliberately hire leftists who can only bombast, and not argue incisively?
If I was hiring, the first criteria for rejecting a possible debater would be "do you think the opposition is evil?"
Posted by: Tom West at Nov 11, 2007 11:05:16 AM
I believe there will be a webcast...if so I'll link to it.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Nov 11, 2007 11:26:20 AM
On the topic of whether America is failing in the pursuit of happiness ... "By the end of the debate there was a slight margin in favor of the Cowen-Wilkinson position."
Does that mean we are only doing so-so?
I have to chuckle that some above seem to take a "slight margin" as a mandate ... what is this, Florida? I, the moderate, wonder what better plans for pursuit of happiness might look like.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 11:32:16 AM
We clearly need a Czar and Department of Happiness in this country. You will be happy, damn it, even you have to be beaten severely to achieve it.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 11, 2007 11:38:53 AM
Odograph,
Considering the location of the debate, I would have to say that Tyler and Will's slight margin (and the change in predebate sentiment is more significant than it might appear.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 11, 2007 11:41:28 AM
LOL, feel free to jerk your knee that way Yancey.
I certainly did not suggest that, and even put in the caution that I am a moderate. If I had to chuckle at the "mandate" ... I have to laugh again that they straw men have taken the field.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 11:43:13 AM
Sachs was over the top. Wilkinson came off a touch snarky at times and referred to "The Data" a little reverently, but generally was right on point. Tyler was calm, but also stepped up the intensity in a good way in his closing statement. Will and Tyler really started to win the crowd when they acknowledged that there were problems with America (education, some poverty) but that the answer isn't necessarily to enact Jeff Sach's personal policy agenda.
Posted by: Bob at Nov 11, 2007 11:44:25 AM
Yancy, my 11:43:13 AM was in response to your 11:38:53 AM. Hope that wasn't confusing.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 11:46:44 AM
Though I was on Tyler & Will's side of the argument, *attending* this debate lowered my happiness. I was reminded that the average American views Jeffrey Sachs as some kind of heroic do-gooder whose policy proposals should be implemented as soon as possible.
Remember that public schoolteacher in the Q&A whose question focused on "freedom from debt," "freedom from student loans" and "freedom from health-care costs"? Um, show me those rights in the Constitution, ma'am. (She got a huge applause, of course.)
Posted by: Anonymous at Nov 11, 2007 12:01:37 PM
Odograph,
My first comment was not directed at you (I hadn't even read the comments yet when I wrote it). It was directed at the implied idea of such a debate that government should be creating policies to try to increase people's happiness. Happiness is such a subjective thing that I find the idea of government management of it to be an appallingly bad idea.
Happiness isn't a right to be bestowed.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 11, 2007 12:22:26 PM
I was there. From my seat, I would say Tyler understates the change. I would guess a good 1/3 of the audience changed its position. This is with what I got away. Betsy-Jeffrey's point: we need government to make us happy. The current government is bad. Therefore we are unhappy. Tyler-Will's point: the diversity and freedom in the U.S. is such that we can be (and are) happy, despite bad policies and problems. Worst argument: relying too much on data. Data tells you what you want it to say (as it was well pointed out). Best argument: Betsy and Jeff claim to be happy, despite their position and their dislike of current policies + immigration flows into the U.S. not out...
It was fun and worthy. If Tyler and Will do it again, go. If you are not a New Yorker, come. You will have a good time. And you may even see Batman peeking out from behind the economist-red lid columns of Gotham Hall...
Posted by: Maria at Nov 11, 2007 1:45:40 PM
I thought the debate was a big success both as entertainment and education, though Sachs being fairly off-topic was disappointing. They should not invite him back unless the proposition is aligned with what he wants to talk about. It was nice to see such a large swing in the audience opinion -- I don't know what's typical for these things, but to me changing the minds of 25% of those that disagreed with you has to be characterized as a knockout. (I enjoyed Tyler trying to characterize the pre-debate poll as 70-30 instead of the moderator's 2/3-1/3 view.)
To me, the most convincing points (against the proposition) were:
a) Sachs saying he was convinced we would succeed in the long run, basically conceding that his arguments were myopic. (How badly can we be failing if there are no serious barriers to long-run success?)
b) Stevenson saying that 17th/200+ is not her definition of success, America should be first. Especially without answering the assertion that the differences between 17th and 1st were noise.
c) Happy-life-years [per lifetime] have increased by 6 years over some horizon.
d) Mexico/Puerto Rico rank very highly, yet 10s of millions of people (net) have moved here.
I thought in something like this it would have been nice to hear which points each side thought were the others' strongest. Or even better, the points they would have made on the other side. There was a lot of "I agree with blah, but blah isn't actually relevant to the proposition." And it would have been nice if more consensus on what exactly the proposition was could have been reached. One of the best things about the blogosphere is watching intelligent & respectful people with different viewpoints engage civilly and occasionally move closer together. (Things like Alex's positive review of _No One Makes You Shop At WalMart_ are very valuable to me.) Maybe Tyrone will comment.
Towards the end there were some heated moments I wish they'd had more time to get into (and would love to hear follow-up from Tyler/Will):
Will asserted that (based on the data) giving more money to unemployed people would not make them happier and Stevenson interrupted (not quite angrily, but astonished that he would say this) to say that that was implausible (the debaters on the whole were excellent at give & take without talking over eachother). Considering the general levels of skepticism Tyler/Will expressed about the data, I guess I'd have to agree that such an implausible result would require pretty strong support. If it doesn't make them *report* higher levels of happiness, that seems much more likely to be the same phenomenon that causes +6 happy-life-years to have no impact on survey results over time.
Tyler, with the last word on some question, observed that those making < $30k (or maybe just "the poor") have high levels of air conditioning, living space, etc. Sachs insisted on a few moments to fairly indignantly say Tyler's comments were "just gross" i.e. that he was trivializing some serious problems that they have.
Anyway, I was very happy to be able to make it.
Posted by: fmb at Nov 11, 2007 2:04:25 PM
I was there. I thought there was an interesting disconnect between the two sides of the debate.
The affirmative took a narrow view of the topic and discussed what the US gov't is doing *right now*, and how these policies would affect the happiness of the nation in the future (clearly if current policies lead to en environmental apocalypse that would have a negative effect on happiness).
The negative, on the other hand, spent much more time discussing long term trends in US governance and institutions and showed (convincingly so) that these have led to a great deal of happiness in the US.
On a separate note, I felt that the audience question part of the debate was the least interesting (as I often do at these sorts of things). I was there to here the ideas of the 4 debaters (experts int their various fields) and not the rambling questions of random audience members.
Topic that wasn't touched on (very much) that I REALLY find interesting: If American's are less happy because they have anxiety about their futures (as the affirmitive claimed), but this anxiety is largely unfounded (see Bryan Caplan), then what (if anything) really needs to change to better promote happiness?
Posted by: harryh at Nov 11, 2007 2:18:13 PM
i felt that the proposition was debating a rather different topic than the one the opposition was... i guess you both won in your own ways.
Posted by: quitacet at Nov 11, 2007 2:39:58 PM
GENUINE HAPPINESS is a state of mind that CANNOT BE REACHED by endlessly acquiring external objects and "improved" relations to the physical world (past the point of basic sustenance of course).
The "need" to acquire objects and status are merely the result of a lack of contentment with oneself. Such a habit pattern of improving physical conditions may support your spiritual practice, but that is the extent of its help. So this debate in a large way was beating around the bush. It did not address the root cause of suffering here in America.
I suggest all those interested in actually being happy read "Genuine Happiness" by B. Alan Wallace and watch this video. Those are available at the following URLs:
http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Happiness-Meditation-Path-Fulfillment/dp/047146984X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8277846-1033705?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194810301&sr=8-1
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4613574501335822995&q=b+alan+wallace&total=44&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=6
Another useful resource is the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.
Best of luck in your endeavors.
Posted by: baiano at Nov 11, 2007 2:57:01 PM
Happiness is such a subjective thing that I find the idea of government management of it to be an appallingly bad idea.
This kind of thing drives me mad. The idea that happiness is this mysterious, unknowable, subjective quality of the human soul is based on a weird, quasi-religious view of human beings.
Human beings are biological and social animals. There's no particular reason to think that life satisfaction is outside the realm of scientific study. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to develop testable theories about the circumstances that are conducive to satisfaction. And while of course government can't and shouldn't "manage" happiness -- a silly straw man -- it seems obvious that to the extent government policy can be geared to producing circumstances conducive to life satisfaction, it should.
For years, we've been using GDP growth as a proxy for happiness, a goal that's "close enough." But accumulating data shows that a) GDP growth is not a very accurate proxy, and b) we're learning enough to be able to aim for the goal directly.
Posted by: David Roberts at Nov 11, 2007 3:43:09 PM
I have mentioned in past MR threads that I like Daniel Gilbert's book, "Stumbling on Happiness." I think it provides a good politics-free, economics-free, and policy-free foundation.
Happiness is (as some say above) biological. It is an internal "how am I doing?" thing. If you think you are doing good, you are probably happy. If you think you are doing badly, you might get sad. (See Glibert's book for interesting limits and feedbacks.)
I guess the frustrating thing, when you start from that foundation, is to see people on the right and left dancing away from happiness. They are literally less interested in being happy than in keeping their beliefs.
Left: If the data does not show that the government can hand out happiness, the data must be wrong.
Right: If the data does not show that ever increasing wealth brings ever increasing happiness, than the data must be wrong.
Both the right and the left (in those extremes) are ignoring the biology as they try to prevent their oxen from being gored (redistribution of wealth, or pursuit of wealth).
The sad bottom line might be that you need freedom (including economic freedom) to pursue personal happiness ... but that freedom does nothing to insure that you go about that pursuit in the right way.
BTW, how strong do you think the evolution vs. creation subtext is in this happiness discussion? My view is strongly evolution based. Perhaps the creationist happiness is common ... no that can't be true. If we were a strongly Christian and faith based nation surely we'd be less materialistic in our pursuit of happiness.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 4:49:16 PM
Congratulations to Tyler on doing well, and I am not surprised that he was perceived to do a good job
of using arguments or data of the other side against them effectively. I was not there, but apparently
Wilkinson is an especially strong debater, Stevenson was semi-inaudible, and Sachs was inappropriately
ranting. In that case, not surpring Tyler and Wikinson did well in terms of audience response.
Regarding the broader issue, I read more happiness papers than most, and probably more than I want to,
but a few observations.
1) One should always be careful about making cross-country comparisons. Too many cultural and other
issues involved that undermine things (e.g. Latinos are happy with their manana, Russians are gloomy
and constantly whining, despite recent improvement according to some stats and Graham's study). Most
useful are time series within a country, especially those of a constant set of people, hence a panel,
which some of the better-done and more recent studies are based on. The science of this happiness
research is improving.
2) Tyler's links are hardly "pointed rebuttals" of Easterlin's work, rather more on the lines of
minor modifications. Lots of the stuff in those links said that Easterlin is mostly correct. I
would remind that his original study was of Japanese time series over a 30 year period during the
economy grew enormously, while overall happiness barely budged, even as it remained constant that
higher income Japanese tended to be happier than lower income Japanese. Much of the recent publicity,
and one of the things in Tyler's links, is this recent Pew study that does seem to find stronger links
between rising incomes and rising happiness, although I think this one study has gotten way too much
publicity (reminder, it spends a lot of time on cross-country comparisons).
3) There are questions about keeping levels and trends separate. Thus, at the crudest level, a
majority of people in a majority of countries come across as more happy than not most of the time.
In that regard, one could say that Cowen-Wilkinson are right; most people in the US are happier than
unhappy, end of argument. And Pew seems to find rising levels of happiness that correlate in various
ways with rising incomes, supposedly in contradiction to Easterlin.
OTOH, there is the question of trends, especially for the US, the suppposed subject of the debate
(since I was not there, I do not know how much the data on other countries got dragged in, although
apparently Wilkinson did mention the relatively high levels of reported happiness in Sweden). So,
most of the data I have seen does not show an upward-sloping moving trend for happiness in the US.
In reply to Sachs-Stevenson, there is not some drastic or short run decline in recent years compared
to say the 1990s, but the trend is not clearly upward, and over the much longer term, the period that
Tyler and Wilkinson were apparently basing their arguments, there is more evidence of decline than
increase. Indeed, according to at least one data series I have seen, US happiness maxed in 1956.
4) In dealing with the latter, there is another important distinction that sounds like it might
have gotten smudged over in this debate: "happiness" versus "satisfaction." Unsurprisingly, these
two are highly correlated, but not perfectly so. Thus, Kahnemann and Krueger have done studies of
moment to moment happiness of people versus lifetime satisfaction. Economic variables are among those
that are quite different here. Income or job status have very little to do with moment to moment happiness
(having just had sex or being with good friends tends to push one up there, while talking with one's boss
or being stuck in traffic commuting tend to be really not good). However, income, and more important,
relative economic and social status have a lot to do with lifetime satisfaction.
5) This latter, which is consistent with the ongoing and fully accepted findings that within a society
the economically and socially better off tend to be happier, part of Easterlin's finding, and not one I
have seen anybody disprove or dispute seriously, helps explain the unhappiness of the presumably
involuntarily unemployed (I realize some readers here may be of the school that believes there is no
such thing, to which all I shall say here is get real and grow up). Such people have suffered loss of
status as well as a loss of income, even possibly a loss of identity, if we are talking about structural
unemployment in which their kind of job has simply disappeared apparently permanently.
In that regard, it should be kept in mind that there are studies of specific kinds of events that make
people unhappy. There are only two that consistently outweigh getting laid off: having a spouse or
partner die and getting thrown in jail.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 11, 2007 4:57:02 PM
Oh yes. I have an explanation for why 1956 may have been the year of maximum happiness in the US.
If one accepts Kahnemann and Krueger that "intimate relations" (the term they used) is at the top
of the list of activities that make people happy, then I would note that 1957 was the year of all
time maximum births in the US. Hmmmmmm.... :-).
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 11, 2007 5:03:16 PM
America is a good country for type very A people. It isn't a bad country for type B people but it isn't particularly good for them either. Type A people are much more likely to change countries in pursuit of opportunity. This is why people move to America from happier places. America is a great place to be happy for a particular kind of person, the kind of person who is willing to leave everything be away from the family and community that they know adapt to a different way of life learn a new language and in many ways start from scratch. The willingness, let alone a desire, to do this is not typical. America caters to the ambitious. This is not a flaw with America (most likely quite the opposite) but it is a reason why I don't see the immigration statistics aren't a good proxy for happiness.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Nov 11, 2007 5:14:01 PM
Anybody know how happiness correlates with credit card debt? That would be an interesting one.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 5:36:01 PM
if we are talking about structural
unemployment in which their kind of job has simply disappeared apparently permanently.
You mean all those structurally unemployed blacksmiths who lost their jobs when Henry Ford et al. shut the lights on the horse and buggy industry? Some moved to Detroit and found work, soon at the previously unheard of wage of $5 a day; others found other things to do in the growing economy.
And the guy who thinks Scandanavian social welfare states are great, maybe so, if you like paying high taxes and being unemployed (their official unemployment stats are lies).
I didn't go to the debate. I won't go when Krugman is there either.
Posted by: Bill Stepp at Nov 11, 2007 5:39:19 PM
Bill,
And now that the auto plants are laying off their well-paid successors those folks are doing
what? I will also note that the original studies by Oswald and crew were in Great Britain, where
the chronic unemployment in the heavy industrial sector has been in the north of England and in
southern Scotland. Those areas are now finally turning around, but they experienced declining
employment, especially of those high paying, unionized industrial jobs, for a many decade period.
Sure, they could move away (and so can all those Michigan autoworkers), but a lot of people are
not all that happy about moving away from their home, and in any case, in this economy many of
those people lack the skills to get a job that will pay as well.
And for that matter, you do not know that all the others did something else. The evidence is
well established that during periods of rising unemployment, things like spousal abuse rates and
suicide rates go up. Some of these people conveniently kill themselves, and so we do not need to
worry about them anymore. This went on big time during the US recession of 1982, which saw a
permanent and large decline of employment in the entire coal-steel-auto complex of the US economy.
This decline in this union-heavy sector, perceived to be at least partly tied to auto imports,
was what triggered the AFL-CIO, and eventually much of the Democratic Party, to go protectionist.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 11, 2007 5:56:03 PM
CONGRATULATIONS! I am VERY happy y'all won, especially given the initial sentiment!
Posted by: Admiral at Nov 11, 2007 10:07:10 PM
David Roberts,
It is hardly a strawman to write that some want government to manage happiness. Indeed, someone above wrote the following:
it seems obvious that to the extent government policy can be geared to producing circumstances conducive to life satisfaction, it should
Now, if that person meant that govnernment should place no barriers in front of people's personal pursuit of happiness, then I might be willing to withdraw my objection, but I doubt that is what was implied. Which do you think it was?
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 12, 2007 10:11:10 AM
I was there, and loved it. First off, the highlight of the whole day for me was Kal's lesson on drawing Bush. I've been perfecting it all weekend!
Second, I thought Sachs was entirely underwhelming. Betsy sounded a tad confused, and pretty much gave you (Tyler) arsenal for attack.
Will was persuasive, although his trembling hands seemed to betray a certain lack of confidence.
Tyler, you were articulate and persuasive - although you could've spoken closer to the mic.
In the end, I think I still believe that 'America is failing in its pursuit for happiness'. The reason I was one of the people who changed their vote from Sachs-Stevenson to Wilkinson-Cowen is that in the end, your arguments were better, you were more persuasive and they were completely off the point.
Posted by: HeShootsAndScores at Nov 12, 2007 10:29:41 AM
I was there, and loved it. First off, the highlight of the whole day for me was Kal's lesson on drawing Bush. I've been perfecting it all weekend!
Second, I thought Sachs was entirely underwhelming. Betsy sounded a tad confused, and pretty much gave you (Tyler) arsenal for attack.
Will was persuasive, although his trembling hands seemed to betray a certain lack of confidence.
Tyler, you were articulate and persuasive - although you could've spoken closer to the mic.
In the end, I think I still believe that 'America is failing in its pursuit for happiness'. The reason I was one of the people who changed their vote from Sachs-Stevenson to Wilkinson-Cowen is that in the end, your arguments were better, you were more persuasive and they were completely off the point.
Posted by: HeShootsAndScores at Nov 12, 2007 10:32:22 AM
I thoroughly enjoyed the debates. Tyler and Wil did a great time and there were moments I wanted to stand up and cheer.
Jeff Sachs was utterly disappointing. His use of a copy of the FT was just silly.
Next time, The Economist may want to better state the proposition. As stated above, sometimes the teams were debating two different issues. This was definitely the case of the second debate, on religion and politics.
Overall, Tyler and Will kicked butt!
Posted by: Chloe at Nov 12, 2007 11:23:06 AM
Regarding unemployment and happiness, I shall make a further point. There are two aspects
of this, a short-term one and a longer term one. A general finding of the happiness lit
is that most people, most of the time, have a reference level of happiness to which they
tend to return. It is unexpected events, up or down, that tend to move them away from that
up or down. But then they tend to drift back to their reference level, if nothing else
happens.
So, getting laid off, especially without warning, is definitely one of the worst of the
negative shocks, and makes people very unhappy. However, like the death of a spouse, this
is one of those shocks that tends to wear off after awhile.
However, if it is a permanent shock, structural unemployment, with the person in question
not finding themselves able to shift to something else nearly as good, they will suffer a
decline in income, and in relative income and status also, fully documented by Easterlin
and everybody else to tend to lower one's satisfaction, if not moment-to-moment happiness,
although this new reference level will be higher than that reached in the immediate aftermath
of the initial layoff.
Clearly age and circumstance has a lot to do with this. Someone in their 20s or even 30s
is generally much more able to get retrained or move or do something else and get themselves
readjusted to get some kind of reasonably decent job, if not necessarily one quite as good
as they had. Also, for the much older who are near retirement age, well, they just effectively
take early retirement. Those hardest hit are likely to be in their 40s or early 50s, not
close enough to retirement, but perhaps at a higher level at their old job, and not able to
retrain or move to get anything close to that level.
A curious parallel to this is the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union. In case
anybody does not know, happiness levels plunged with that event. People were not en masse,
overjoyed by the end of Communist rule, although the plunge in happiness was probably driven
more by the collapse in living standards that happened (and indeed as Pew reports, happiness
levels are rising in those countries now as income levels are rising). Along with these
measured levels of happiness, there was a widespread increase in suicides. Who increased
their suicide rates the most? Males in their 40s.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 12, 2007 12:31:16 PM
David wrote:
"it seems obvious that to the extent government policy can be geared to producing circumstances conducive to life satisfaction, it should"
Yancey responded:
"Now, if that person meant that government should place no barriers in front of people's personal pursuit of happiness, then I might be willing to withdraw my objection, but I doubt that is what was implied. Which do you think it was?"
So what is The Clean Air Act, Yancey? Is it a protection or an obstruction?
I'm afraid this happiness question will continue to fall out along ideological lines, as people pick and choose bits of the happiness lit to suit their agenda.
(The moderates answer is that a regulated market economy attempts to find the balance, to ever pursue the balance, between personal freedom and aggregate welfare. The Clean Air Act is one example of that attempted balance.)
Posted by: odograph at Nov 12, 2007 1:52:20 PM
Clearly, Will and Tyler had the rhetoric skill on their side and their opponents were weak. The evidence, however, is not so clear. As Michael Foody rightfully points out above, the immigrants into the US are the strong in their country who are favored by the American system: healthy, ambitious and a large group of them well educated. Who is left behind are the weak---people who are ill or lack education. Most of them grew up in this country!
People tend to compare their lot to the (perceived) national average. Therefore, the huge inequalities in the US play against the happiness of the average population. This can probably not be alleviated significantly by higher unemployment support or other government hand-outs. But better access to high-quality education and better protection from health risks would most certainly help.
Posted by: Oreg at Nov 12, 2007 2:32:09 PM
One point where Will got it completely backwards: Eastern-Germans were most definitely not happier after the reunification of their country with the West. On the contrary, a large number of them wished the wall back---in spite of the fact that they were better off. Compared to their compatriots in the West they lagged behind and that made them very unhappy.
Posted by: Oreg at Nov 12, 2007 2:36:54 PM
Odograph,
I would say it is either to different people. The same might be said of laws against assualt.
I think a clear principle would be that your pursuit of happiness, however you define it, cannot impinge on another's pursuit his/her own. Where I have problems is the way the definition of "impinge" seems to be far too elastic for many people, maybe even a majority of people. Am I impinging on a person's pursuit of happiness by having a higher income, for example?
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 12, 2007 3:27:47 PM
"Am I impinging on a person's pursuit of happiness by having a higher income, for example?"
Only if you somehow tip your hand ;-)
Posted by: odograph at Nov 12, 2007 4:21:13 PM
Oreg,
You clearly did not read my last comment, especially the last paragraph. It was not just
the Soviet Union but pretty much the entire former Soviet bloc where happiness levels plunged
after the fall of the Wall and the end of Communist rule, and in 1991, the end of the Soviet Union.
But there is good reason to believe that major chunks of that were due to the massive recession/
depression that hit all of those countries, to varying degrees however. Real incomes fell,
unemployment rose, inflation rose, inequality increased, benefits disappeared, and so and so forth.
This decline in real incomes and rise in unemployment was especially extreme in the former East
Germany because of the unification of the currencies occurring at a one-to-one rate, when it was
pretty clear that a three-to-one rate would have been more reasonable. So, the industries in the
former GDR found themselves operating with a wildly overvalued currency, in a newly competitive
framework. As a result, between September 1989 and September 1991, industrial output plunged over
50% and layoffs by 2nd quarter of 1991 amounted to a third of the labor force. No wonder people
were unhappy.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 12, 2007 4:50:37 PM
Barkley, of course I read your comment! But East-Germans were much better off financially than the rest of the former Soviet bloc thanks to massive transfers from the West of the country to the East. So in spite of the high unemployment rate they were much better off. And yet they were unhappy.
In Russia unhappiness can be explained with the decline of living standards. Not so in Eastern Germany.
Posted by: Oreg at Nov 12, 2007 5:19:59 PM
Oreg,
Apparently you did not read the full comment. People have reference levels of happiness tied to expected
reference levels of income, with relative incomes being very important.
So, in the old system, they were the top of the heap within the Soviet bloc, selling high tech goods to the
other CMEA countries. Then, when the Wall fell, they were no longer in comparison with their former CMEA
members, but with the West Germans, the Wessis, who it is known almost immediately began looking down on them,
the Ossis. And then their incomes collapsed, reducing their living standards, even if those remained above
most of those in the former Soviet bloc, which was now buying the East Asian competitor goods formerly
purchased from the former GDR. To add injury to insult, many East Germans were fired from their jobs for
political reasons (many teachers, lawyers, and so forth), and Wessis even moved in to take over many of the
better paying and managerial and higher level jobs. They were reduced in both real income, relative income,
and status. So, they had plenty to be unhappy about, although things have been improving in more recent
years, and the happiness levels have been going back up again, if still well below those in western Germany.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 12, 2007 5:49:46 PM
Barkley Rosser: I loved your comment on the 1956 happiness peak.
Everybody: There has been something of an intellectual fad for the last seven years that coupling your argument to an attack on the Bush administration, no matter how tenuous the link, somehow immunizes it from critique. This fad has been especially strong in New York and in academic circles, and it helps explain some of Jeff Sach's and Joe Stiglitz's more bizarre lines of reasoning.
Not long ago I attended a pleasant, instructive, and mostly politics-free lecture on Haiti at a nearly University. Afterwards there was a question and answer session. Question: "What is the most important step to improving living conditions in Haiti?" Answer: (Offered without further explanation.) "Get the United States a different president." The crowd erupted in cheers. Do the lecturer or the audience members really, truely believe that the most important factor affected Haitain economic development is who is president of the United States? Did the George Bush invade and occupy Haiti recently and someone neglect to tell me?
Posted by: David Wright at Nov 12, 2007 9:13:11 PM
Barkley, it seems to me that for the most part we violently agree. Here is the main point I think we both try to make: The East Germans were better off than the other East European countries, yet they were very unhappy because the baseline for their self-assessment changed from Soviet bloc countries to West Germany, thereby moving up and making them look poor in comparison.
The one point I'm not so sure about:
> They were reduced in both real income
So you are saying their incomes in absolute terms were lower after the unification than before? Note that the loss in competitiveness was offset by the large transfers of aid money from the West---a treat that was not available to any other country in the former Soviet bloc.
Posted by: Oreg at Nov 12, 2007 9:20:35 PM
Oreg,
The transfers were insufficient to offset the real declines,
which were among the most severe in the entire former CMEA,
for reasons already elucidated. Just to compare, in Poland
the decline was not nearly as severe (and turned around into
growth much more quickly) because of both a combination of
zloty devaluation that maintained the competitiveness of Polish
industries, along with macro policies that stabilized the
economy more quickly. Some other countries had even smaller
declines in real output, such as the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 13, 2007 1:14:02 AM
I find it mind-boggling that people who have thought long and hard on this subject can cast America's collective approach to pursuing happiness (i.e. politics) as off-topic!
To think that an individual pursuing his or her happiness/security/satisfaction is somehow unrelated to the collective effort (i.e. politics) strikes me as ... I don't know ... bizarre.
It was a shame that you didn't engage in this critical component of the topic (and that Sachs used the dirty word in the first place).
Posted by: JF at Nov 13, 2007 9:41:54 AM
I find it mind-boggling that people who have thought long and hard on this subject can cast America's collective approach to pursuing happiness (i.e. politics) as off-topic!
To think that an individual pursuing his or her happiness/security/satisfaction is somehow unrelated to the collective effort (i.e. politics) strikes me as ... I don't know ... bizarre.
It was a shame that you didn't engage in this critical component of the topic (and that Sachs used the dirty word in the first place).
Posted by: JF at Nov 13, 2007 9:43:16 AM
Barkley, the numbers I find paint a different picture. Incomes in East Germany rose by more than 20% by October 1990 and another 50% by Fall 1991. According to the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) the transfers between 1991 and 2003 amount to about 1.2 trillion Euro---other estimates are even higher. The East German GDP in 1989 was only 208 billion Euro. The one-to-one currency conversion in 1990 alone cost more than 130 billion Euro.
Thanks to the transfers, the absolute wealth of East Germany improved with the unification---in spite of the plunging economic output. East Germans were unhappy in spite of their improved financial situation.
Posted by: Oerg at Nov 13, 2007 11:03:59 AM
Oreg,
Transfers did not start right away. Officially the currencies were at one-to-one anyway,
although they did not formally trade, so there was no technical increase in wealth. What
wealth? The East Germans did not have stocks or bonds, but they certainly lost jobs at
a humongous rate.
Increase by 20% From what base? The previous year? Baloney. Sources for the data I presented
above? OECD Economic Surveys: Germany, 1991/1992 and Rolf Hasse, "German-German Monetary Union:
Main Options, Costs and Repercussions," in A.G. Ghausy and W. Schhfer, eds. _The Economics of
German Unification_, 1993, London: Routledge, p. 44. For further discussion also see, Chapter 9
of J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Marina V. Rosser, Comparative Economics in a Transforming World
Economy, 2nd edition, 2004, MIT Press.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 13, 2007 3:29:34 PM
JF, it's interesting isn't it? We pursue some political goal because we may think it will improve our (or the collective) happiness, but we rarely frame it that way. Politicians don't say "vote for me, I'll make you happy." It is all indirect, and one step removed. It's "vote for me, I'll cut taxes" or "vote for me, I'll improve medical care."
Posted by: odograph at Nov 13, 2007 5:47:10 PM
Barkley,
Thank you for the sources and sorry for leading the discussion so far off topic. Very interesting, though.
The official Ostmark to D-Mark exchange rate of one-to-one was only a theoretical, political value because, as you point out, the Ostmark was not convertible. Estimates of the "real" and black-market value are in the order of 5:1 to 10:1 (see, e.g., Sinn and Sinn, "Jumpstart: The Economic Unification of Germany," p.54). To convert this currency one-to-one was a major transfer that started with the monetary union---even before the political reunification. Social security transfers started right after.
"Sure enough, between 1990 and 1991, German growth steeply accelerated when incomes in the newly liberated East rapidly expanded [...]" Eckhard Wurzel, "Germany: The case for reform," OECD Observer No. 237, May 2003. See also: Wurzel, E., (2001), “The economic integration of Germany’s new Länder”, OECD Economics Department Working Paper No. 307.
Posted by: Oreg at Nov 14, 2007 10:52:30 AM
Oreg,
A lot of confusion about dates. The major collapse came after the
unification of the currencies in mid-1990, prior to political unification
several months later.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 14, 2007 3:34:22 PM
Oreg,
Just to reiterate what is a main point and the main answer to your original question.
The immediate aftermath of the fall of the Wall was a period of great confusion, however
certainly economic growth did begin fairly soon in the former GDR. Nevertheless, nobody
has seriously questioned the most important part of the Easterlin argument, that a person's
happiness is strongly tied to their income relative to their reference group. For the former
East Germans that reference group changed from others in the former Soviet bloc, where they
were top dogs in terms of real per capita income, plus working in high tech jobs in computer
and advanced machine tool industries, to being bottom dogs compared to the West Germans, compared
with whom they still have only 2/3 of the real income now, plus having only 60% of the employment
they had in 1989, plus that much of this is now in support and input industries to West German
firms. They have gone from high status and high relative per capita income to low on both counts.
Irrespective of the exact time path of their real per capita income in the wake of the fall of the
Wall, this alone explains their considerable unhappiness.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 14, 2007 4:41:24 PM
Barkley, Yes! I completely agree with your conclusion. I suspected that we agreed on the main question all along. Thank you for your persistence. :-)
Posted by: Oreg at Nov 14, 2007 9:41:21 PM
Posted by: ggw at Mar 31, 2008 2:42:47 AM
Posted by: gangguan at Mar 31, 2008 3:02:26 AM
Posted by: 鑽石 at Apr 2, 2008 11:17:41 PM
