« O Economista Que Há Em Si | Main | The Price of Everything »
Who is the happiest-looking economist?
A group of researchers showed photographs, taken from economists' home pages, to the public and the winner was Edmund Phelps; here is the paper. Will Wilkinson, source of the tip, summarizes further (with photos) and offers this quotation:
...advice for young academics is: if you seek happiness, become a macro-economist and research happiness; a Nobel Prize does not make you happier; if you want to be popular with the ladies, take lessons from Edmund Phelps, Bruno Frey and Richard Easterlin; if you are looking for the ability to age like a red wine, Joseph Stiglitz and Jean Tirole have the trick, but not Richard Easterlin.
I thought that Milton Friedman usually looked very happy though he was not included in the poll.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 18, 2008 at 10:17 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Milton Friedman looked very happy
Call no man happy until he is dead, I suppose.
Posted by: Kieran at Jun 18, 2008 10:21:08 AM
Thank you for posting this. Very interesting!!
Posted by: Just Me at Jun 18, 2008 10:32:06 AM
Thank you for posting this. Very interesting!!
Posted by: Just Me at Jun 18, 2008 10:32:25 AM
I always thought Robert Solow looked very happy. Not happy like Ed Phelps, but very content.
Posted by: Katie at Jun 18, 2008 10:47:19 AM
...munger?
This year's public choice society page
not sure which category randall holcombe would win...happiness won't be it, though.
Posted by: shawn at Jun 18, 2008 11:19:24 AM
Kieran, are you an Economist? Sure don't sound happy. I would guess that famous Economist are happier because they are able to effect their surrounding more than others in terms of policy. I'd certain be happier if I could make a big differences.
Posted by: Gunnar W at Jun 18, 2008 11:25:49 AM
"advice for young academics is: if you seek happiness, become..."
Shouldn't this read:
"advice for you academics is: if you seek to appear happy to others, become..."
I realize there's probably correlation between appearing happy and actually being happy, but we should always strive for more precise language.
Posted by: mravery at Jun 18, 2008 11:54:55 AM
Well, pleasant fluff; but this is evaluating photographs - not real people. And the photo of Andrew Oswald is just about the worst I have ever seen of him, not even a good likeness. He certainly looks happier than this in real life!
Posted by: BGC at Jun 18, 2008 11:59:43 AM
I've always thought Phelps seemed incredibly happy in his pictures (even his pre-Nobel pictures). That's funny to learn that he is indeed the happiest-looking. Of course, what's the correlation between "happy looking" and subjective happiness? Some people (and I hate these people, as I'm not one of them) have really great smiles. My smile is this strained horizontal line and it looks like I'm taking a crap. But I think I'm fairly happy (I promise!).
Posted by: jason voorhees at Jun 18, 2008 12:19:01 PM
The 5 with the lowest perceived happiness also have the "flattest" smile arc. See http://www.angle.org/anglonline/?request=get-document&issn=0003-3219&volume=076&issue=04&page=0557
Posted by: Andy at Jun 18, 2008 1:21:17 PM
Happiness can be derived from the dismal science? Say it ain't so!
Posted by: bst at Jun 18, 2008 1:37:36 PM
I think that Kieran was alluding to the story about Solon and Croesus from Herodotus. Essentially, Solon maintained that one could not know whether a man's life was happy until it was over. As long as he was alive, happiness could still turn to sorrow.
Posted by: Rich Berger at Jun 18, 2008 1:54:49 PM
Nonsense
Posted by: GVV at Jun 18, 2008 2:21:25 PM
Maybe even nonsense on stilts.
Did I miss something? Have we suddenly solved every mystery of the business cycle, or of economic development? Yes, "Freakonomics" was quite an enjoyable read, but by now there is just too much idle, would-be original crap out there.
Posted by: UnhappyEconomist at Jun 18, 2008 3:19:04 PM
Thanks for that, Rich, that was indeed the reference.
I think Geoff Brennan is the happiest-looking economist of my acquaintance. Tyler looks quite misanthropic in pictures; in person, I don't know.
Posted by: Kieran at Jun 18, 2008 3:27:18 PM
Regardless of how you rate him as an economist, I think no one can deny that Murray Rothbard always looked exceedingly happy!
Posted by: Diogo at Jun 18, 2008 3:35:30 PM
Austin Goolsbee... That guy is always smiling.
Posted by: SS at Jun 18, 2008 3:35:32 PM
Of course they can live thinking as if they were really happy
Posted by: karl at Jun 18, 2008 4:09:13 PM
This is just plain old silly. Aside from my usual obections to happiness research, I reject the results out of a hand since a single photograph is a worthless indicator of happiness
Posted by: Enrique at Jun 18, 2008 4:59:07 PM
Friedman certainly looked happy, and even happier when he was fighting his adversaries. He looked profoundly satisfied at every punch he threw. There's a photo of Stigler and Friedman walking together by a sidewalk...it looks like two happy economists, walking peacefully at the sunset.
Posted by: Andres at Jun 18, 2008 5:16:55 PM
Posted by: shawn at Jun 18, 2008 8:10:56 PM
Phelps has the biggest grin and his picture is at the upper right corner, the place a Westerner looks at a page first. The head sizes also vary in the photos (due to different camera distances) and Phelps' is one of the largest. His picture was the obvious choice of the reflex for these trivial reasons. How about a contest to see who has the biggest yawn?
This reminds me of a similar piece of pseudoscience -- the face detection software in airports that is supposed to be able to detect terrorists by detecting fear and nervousness. I'd be nervous too if I knew software based on such creepy theories was watching me.
Posted by: barracuda at Jun 18, 2008 9:08:15 PM
Andres: "Friedman certainly looked happy, and even happier when he was fighting his adversaries. He looked profoundly satisfied at every punch he threw.
Well, ignorance (of what's going on out there in the lives of the average working person) is bliss, I suppose.
Posted by: ranger_granger at Jun 18, 2008 10:31:31 PM
I would have chosen Krugman. He looks happy in a zen kind of way. Some of the other guys look too happy and smile too much, one wonders whether they are just pretending for the picture and then just feel miserable.
Posted by: Olivia at Jun 19, 2008 5:55:56 AM
What about Sala i Martin? Look at him in a moment of absolute joy (In the FC Barcelona Stadium, of course): http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/Indexmuppet.htm
Posted by: Carles at Jun 19, 2008 8:42:13 AM
