While research on happiness and capabilities has been growing rapidly, they seldom treated together for useful policy insights. Using a unique self-reported questionnaire about mental well being in the Pakistan Socio-Economic Survey (PSES), we measure Sen’s capabilities (freedom, functionings...

As at today, it is an indisputable fact that the climate is changing and there is a scientific consensus that the world is becoming a warmer place principally attributable to human activities. Regrettably, the physical impacts of future climate change on humans and the environment will include...

This paper examines how the level and dispersion of self-reported happiness has evolved over the period 1972-2006. While there has been no increase in aggregate happiness, inequality in happiness has fallen substantially since the 1970s. There have been large changes in the level of happiness...

Notably, the 20th century was dominated by the legacy of devastating global wars, colonial struggles, and ideological conflicts as well as effort s to establish international systems that would foster global peace and prosperity. Yet, insecurity and corruption not only remain, they have become...

Empirical analysis confirms the Easterlin Paradox: there is indeed a statistically significant and positive, albeit very small, relationship between economic growth and happiness. Notwithstanding a conclusion based on statistical significance, economic analysis of the results, on the other hand,...

Empirical analysis confirms the Easterlin Paradox: there is indeed a statistically significant and positive, albeit very small, relationship between economic growth and happiness. Notwithstanding a conclusion based on statistical significance, economic analysis of the results, on the other hand,...

Many literatures investigate the causal impact of income on economic outcomes, for example in the context of intergenerational transmission or well-being and health. Some studies have proposed to use employer wage differentials and in particular industry affiliation as an instrument for income....

The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there is no link between a society’s economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear positive...

Rapid urbanization is a fact of live even in the least developed countries (LDCs) where the lion’s share of the population presently lives in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. At the turn of the millennium 75% of the LDCs’ population still lived in rural areas and...

The New Nationalism in Africa and elsewhere shows remarkable differences both in its roots and its impact, compared with that of national independence movements of the early 1960s. Contrary to the first nationalism, the second is less prone to include than to exclude populations; alienation,...