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...

In this paper, we apply a convex hull approach to counterfactual analysis of trade openness and growth. The experiments we choose evaluate the importance of trade openness for growth across African countries. Specifically, we ask the question what would happen if African countries were more...

We explore the relationships between subjective well-being and income, as seen across individuals within a given country, between countries in a given year, and as a country grows through time. We show that richer individuals in a given country are more satisfied with their lives than are poorer...

Korea's economy has leaped to high-income status thanks to several decades of sustained high growth. However, population aging and shifts in global demand provide headwinds for future growth and Korea now faces the effects of COVID-19 on economic activity. This paper asseses the expected drag on...

We assess the long-run growth effects of rising longevity and increasing the retirement age when growth is driven by purposeful research and development. In contrast to economies in which growth depends on learning-by-doing spillovers, raising the retirement age fosters economic growth. How...

Output gap estimates are subject to a wide range of uncertainty owing to data revisions and the difficulty in distinguishing between cycle and trend in real time. This is important given the central role in monetary policy of assessments of economic activity relative to capacity. We show that...