-
Disagree We certainly know a lot about the general domains in which government expenditure is more likely to increase wellbeing than in others - in particular, we know that investments in better mental health via direct individual support services return significant wellbeing benefits relative to many other areas of direct government expenditure, like spending on "the healthcare system" (much of which in the developed West today goes to bureaucratic salaries and items that hardly move the needle on aggregate wellbeing). We also know that GDP per capita is reasonably well related to wellbeing, at least across countries, so for a poor country it is not a bad heuristic to target policies that lead to higher GDP per capita, as long as that growth is reasonably well distributed across the population. However, i don't "completely disagree" with this statement because we still see insufficient scholarly and back-room public evaluative efforts towards determining which specific government policies maximise human wellbeing in particular settings.
Professor Gigi Foster
Associate Professor and Undergraduate Coordinator, School of Economics, UNSW Business School -
Disagree I think there is sound research that points to the well-being relevance of drivers such as mental health, interpersonal relationships, and livelihood of the environment, However, from a policy perspective, we face two bottlenecks; first, research is usually presented in academic terms (papers), and it becomes necessary to use a different language to reach policy makers. Second, most policy makers have been educated within a paradigm that stresses the role of income, productivity, competition, and economic growth; thus, policy makers are not familiar with the well-being paradigm and less with policies to promote it. They are, in consequence, inclined to stay in their area of comfort and to keep implementing policies focused on economic growth rather than on well-being.
Professor Mariano Rojas
Professor of Economics, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla -
Disagree I think we learned a lot in the the past decade on well-being policies, but I would think there is still a lot to learn. As with much of social science, much of our knowledge is not as strong as it should be due to research often being correlational, not causal. This is a fundamental problem for happiness research as well, as strong causal designs (e.g. experiments) are often impossible (randomize countries into implementing a policy or not?!) or ethically undesirable (randomize people into being fired/experiencing a health shock/martial breakup or not to look into the effect of these conditions on SWB?!).
Professor Martin Binder
Professor of Socio-Economics at Bundeswehr University Munich -
Disagree In recent years we accumulated substantial evidence on what increases well-being. Experiments on pro-social behaviors, on urban design or on the workplace are examples of the areas that have been explored in the literature. There is still much to be explored and understood, but we have definitely progressed.
Doctor Francesco Sarracino
Economist, Research Division of the Statistical Office of Luxembourg -STATEC -
Disagree We know a great deal more than we did a decade ago, in part due to ongoing efforts by governments like the UK's and New Zealand's, to regularly include the metrics in their statistics and in the operations of their governments in area ranging from cost-benefit analysis, to setting budgetary priorities, to environmental and education policies, and more. In addition, as part and parcel of new concerns about loneliness, social isolation, and declining mental health in many places, the knowledge from well-being based policies, such as the UK's Campaign to End Loneliness, provide even more examples. And institutions or organizations, such the decades long experience of the What Works Wellbeing Centre in the UK, are providing evidence based best practices for how to implement a host of well-being based policies targeted at particular population groups such as the young, the left-behinds, and the elderly.
Professor Carol Graham
Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution -
Agree While significant progress has been made in well-being research and valuable insights have been gained, it is premature to consider the work complete. I believe that the use of existing measures of well-being for effective policymaking faces significant challenges until several fundamental issues are addressed. In my view, these challenges fall into three broad areas:
Professor Mohsen Joshanloo
Associate Professor (Psychology), Keimyung University, South Korea
1. Conceptual issues The conceptual underpinnings of well-being measures, particularly as applied in large-scale surveys, raise questions about their relevance to policy. The preference for certain measures over others often lacks clear justification. For example, the Cantril ladder is considered in some projects to be a superior measure of happiness compared to direct questions about happiness. Existing large-scale projects often focus disproportionately on certain aspects of well-being, while neglecting crucial psychological and social dimensions. This imbalance is not well justified and deserves more attention.
2. Methodological and statistical issues The reliability of well-being data for policymaking is compromised by inconsistencies in methodological approaches, sampling procedures, sample characteristics, and statistical properties of measurement instruments. For example, significant discrepancies in the rankings of nations on subjective well-being between major international surveys (e.g., the World Values Survey and the Gallup World Poll) warrant further attention.
3. Cultural issues Most current measures of well-being appear to be more appropriate for specific cultural contexts, potentially biasing policy recommendations against others and limiting their global applicability. These cultural limitations pose a risk to the use of well-being evidence for policy purposes and underscore the need for caution. Addressing these issues is critical to translating well-being research into effective policy recommendations. I believe that equal attention to these challenges, along with the promotion of well-being findings, is essential to moving the field forward. -
Neither agree nor disagree Despite several decades of research on national wellbeing, there are challenges in translating theoretical insights into effective policies. However, we have made significant progress at the theoretical level, especially regarding evaluative subjective wellbeing (such as life satisfaction). One well-established finding is that wellbeing is inherently relative: people constantly compare various aspects of their lives to those of others. This means that if national wellbeing is viewed as the sum of individual wellbeing, policies aimed at improving "rival" dimensions of life, such as income (which fuels comparison), may not lead to sustained increases in overall wellbeing. The same logic applies to adaptation—people tend to adjust to (positive) new circumstances relatively quickly. This is somewhat illustrated by the Easterlin paradox, where economic growth does not consistently lead to long-term increases in life satisfaction.
Doctor Anthony Lepinteur
Research Scientist, University of Luxembourg
In contrast, policies that improve "non-rival" dimensions of life—areas where comparison is less relevant and adaptation is slower—hold greater promise for boosting national wellbeing. Examples, although imperfect, include health and social capital, where improvements may have sustained impact on wellbeing. However, identifying the specific policies that can consistently raise national wellbeing requires further empirical research. We need more robust evidence on which interventions have lasting effects in these non-rival domains to formulate policies that enhance wellbeing on a national scale. -
Disagree Concerning cognitive well-being measures (e.g., life satisfaction), we have learned a lot about the circumstances under which people are, on average, more satisfied. People in countries with, for example, higher incomes, less unemployment, better healthcare, more trust in other people and public institutions, and active social relations are more satisfied with their lives than people in other countries. Unfortunately, knowing what factors contribute to national well-being does not directly tell us which policies are best suited to improve these factors. Here, more research is undoubtedly needed.
Professor Andreas Knabe
Professor (Chair in Public Economics), Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg -
Disagree We know how self-reported wellbeing behaves, individually and in aggregate.
Professor Eugenio Proto
Alec Cairncross Professor of Applied Economics and Econometrics, University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Business School -
Neither agree nor disagree Unfortunately, I must neither agree nor disagree because most of the research on national well-being is not sufficiently rigorous. Causal studies tend to be micro studies, but we cannot necessarily infer micro-relations will scale to the national level. Micro-studies tend to focus on one population subgroup and do not consider the aggregate effects. At scale, the benefits may reflect a redistribution of well-being and / or the interventions may be difficult or impossible to implement at the national level. We have a lot of non-causal indications of potential levers using continuous variation across countries and or time, e.g., using an index of welfare state generosity, but few evaluations of specific policies at the national level. An example study which shows labor market policy (income replacement) can mitigate (not raise) the negative effects of recessions on national well-being is: Morgan, R., O’Connor, K.J. Labor Market Policy and Subjective Well-Being During the Great Recession. J Happiness Stud 23, 391–422 (2022).
Doctor Kelsey J O'Connor
Researcher in the Economics of Well-being -
Disagree We do know plenty. For instance, countries that have increased prosperity can maintain strong health systems and social supports combined with personal safety that contribute to higher subjective wellbeing, whereas countries that have declining health and social welfare systems and worsening safety, often attributable to declining relative prosperity, tend to have reductions in subjective wellbeing (e.g. see surveys such as Dolan et al., 2008; and Clark, 2018). Countries which maintain free speech and other human rights and which have low corruption tend to have higher wellbeing [e.g. Voerman-Tam et al.,2023; Layard et al., 2012], so maintenance of these factors through policy choices also contributes to high levels of national wellbeing.
Professor Arthur Grimes
Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington -
Disagree Although it is tempting to agree with this statement (we know so little and there is much to know), I would say that we have made substantial progress and we do know many things that make people wellbeing. At least, we know things that increase most people’s wellbeing. If I had to say three I would argue for social relationships (having friends or people with whom spend time and with who you cant count on), good health (valued only when you miss it) and economic certainty (a job that gives purpose, a stable economic situation, and not be poor).
Professor Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Professor of Economics, IAE-CSIC -
Disagree By now, I do think we have a pretty good idea of the main things that provide a high bang for the buck. The package I now recommend includes sewage, clean water, garbage collection, electricity or gas-based end-consumer energy provision, basic policing, basic family physicians, an inclusive national story, a mixed-market economy, a minimal welfare level, high levels of personal freedom, cheap state or private education for the vast majority, and rotation-based leadership.
Professor Paul Frijters
Professorial Research Fellow, CEP Wellbeing Programme, London School of Economics -
Disagree Serious policy evaluations with causal designs in economics and other social sciences have contributed a lot to the evidence base of welfare enhancing policies in the last twenty years.
Professor Alois Stutzer
Professor of Political Economics, University of Basel -
Agree We have learned a lot from studies on how to increase national well-being. However, social and economic conditions have changed so much that the old prescriptions may have lost effectiveness and should be updated, at least in the advanced countries. The experience of the pandemic, the growing pressure of immigration, wars, and the widespread use of the Internet for information and entertainment have made it more difficult to conceive and apply effective prescriptions for well-being. Economic growth, healthcare and education are not only increasingly difficult to pursue, in the attempt to provide well-being through more income, employment, health and empowerment, but they are no longer sufficient. The reasons may be found in the competition that has extended from the economy to social relations, and in the uncertainty about the future that has increased. The consequences are that aspirations have become increasingly unachievable, and discouragement has led many people to invest less in the future and to seek pleasure in the present, while becoming more self-interested. Therefore, changing the beliefs and behaviours has become more difficult.
Professor Maurizio Pugno
Full Professor of Economics, University of Cassino -
Disagree First, the concept of “well-being” is a multi-dimensional concept encompassing material living standards, health, education, environmental conditions, etc. (Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009) and numerous policies are designed to target and improve these dimensions.
Professor Talita Greyling
Professor, School of Economics, University of Johannesburg
If we consider subjective well-being—which at a national level is measured by the average response to a life satisfaction question—research has repeatedly shown that variables, such as health, education, social relationships and income, strongly correlate with subjective well-being. Since the studies by the pioneers of wellbeing research, such as Easterlin (1974), Diener and Chan (2011), Blanchflower and Oswald (2004), and Ruut Veenhoven (2008), a substantial body of literature supported these findings.
Thus, whether considering multi-dimensional well-being or life satisfaction, many policies aimed at improving the dimensions and covariates of life satisfaction can indeed contribute to increases in national well-being.
In addition to traditional survey-based insights, we now benefit from data-driven insights from Big Data and AI. The Gross National Happiness project provides real-time, context-specific insights into nations' collective moods and emotions. For example, in the study “A Tale of Three Countries: What is the Relationship Between COVID‐19, Lockdown, and Happiness?”, we found that COVID-19-related policies—such as lockdowns—had a negative impact on well-being, and social restrictions led to sharp increases in stress, anxiety, and negative emotions.
In conclusion, many studies indicate that policies can significantly improve national well-being. However, further exploration is needed to identify additional policies that could impact other aspects of well-being, such as positive and negative affect, and policies that can further enhance factors such as social relationships. -
Disagree I think we know well what conditions foster high life satisfaction: for instance, when people feel they are contributing to something larger and enduring, i.e., are needed and loved; when they feel trust in people and institutions around them; and when they feel physically safe, they are likely to feel that life is good overall.
Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Associate Professor, McGill University
From this follow many policies at local and organizational levels, and also from it follow some principles for central government policies and large-scale "wellbeing budgeting". However, in the real world of international externalities and collective action problems, of fast-evolving technological contexts, and maybe above all of what economists call multiple equilibria, it can feel that we are still stumbling around in the dark. That is, we cannot easily extrapolate from looking at the current world and past history in order to know what is the best world we should and could be aspiring towards. This is no less true for other objectives than wellbeing; for instance old paradigms (and theories) for economic growth may not be the right recipe for the next generation.
Also, I do not believe that government decisions can or should be made only with an eye to human wellbeing. As I have explained in "Life satisfaction and sustainability: a policy framework," (SN Social Sciences, doi:10.1007/s43545-021-00185-8, July 2021), and elsewhere, a different decision-making principle is almost certainly required for decisions characterized by long time scales, complex systems, or high uncertainty.
It can also be bewildering looking at governments and seeing that, despite decades of the evidence, very few are framing policy and making policy around wellbeing. However, without appropriate pressure, we should not necessarily expect governments to be aligned with this outcome, especially in a world with the collective action problems of economic and military competition, not to mention flawed political systems.
On the other hand, the existence of countries with signficantly more satisfied populations than others always gives us a crude compass towards better policies, even in the absence of nice causal identification. Yet many world leaders would not want to adopt the "Nordic model" even if they believe people there are happier. Thus, political commitment to wellbeing as an outcome is critical. -
Disagree There are several recent reference works that document what policies increase national wellbeing, such as:
Professor Heinz Welsch
Professor of Economics, University of Oldenburg
Paul Frijters, Christian Krekel (2021), A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy Making: History, Theory, Measurement, Implementation, and Examples, Oxford University Press.
Ruut Veenhoven, Dan Buettner, Toben Nelson (2020), Ways to greater happiness: A Delphi study, Journal of Happiness Studies, 2020 21(8), 2789-2806.
While the latter is a comprehensive collection of expert opinion -- summarizing points of agreement and disagreement -- the former provides a practical approach (WELLBY approach) for using life satisfaction in cost-effectiveness analysis of public policies. -
Disagree There has been numerous research across various disciplines, from Philosophy to Economics, Psychology and Neuroscience on happiness and wellbeing. These add to our enhanced understanding of wellbeing. Personal wellbeing and national wellbeing are separate but related states of being. National wellbeing is a determinant of personal wellbeing, but national wellbeing can be an outcome personal wellbeing. If there is good, clean and ethical governance, respect of rule of law, maintenance of law, security and order, provision, growth in employment, real GDP per capita growth, people feel safe, and trust democratic institutions for effective service delivery, people feel happier. These external environmental conditions are to be optimally shaped by the government and should induce general happiness among citizens.
Professor Darma Mahadea
Associate Professor and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
Where there is rising unemployment, service delivery failures in providing education, health care and security, and people cannot trust civil servants and the police or policymakers, life conditions become miserable, contributing to human unhappiness, and a deterioration on national wellbeing. Empirical studies clearly show that we need expanding and inclusive Economic growth, which in turn generates growth in income and facilitates state redistribution, for enhanced personal happiness and national wellbeing. The conclusion is clear economic growth contributes to happiness and national wellbeing, and inclusive GDP growth and expanding social networks should remain a policy focus (Frey and Stutzer, 2007; Helliwell, Barrington-Leigh, Harris, Helliwell and Kahneman, 2010; World Happiness Reports).
At the individual level, personal wellbeing encompasses the physical, mental, social, emotional, human capital (education and training), wealth (financial and assets), social capital (bonding within family, community, work associations), spiritual capital (beliefs in religiosity, ethics and helping behaviour toward mode of goodness. If one is in employment and gaining income, rather than being unemployed and in poverty, a more positive outlook emerges for both individual happiness and national wellbeing. Each individual can increase his/her happiness and that of others too in a caring approach (Layard, 2020).
Some people tend to believe that their happiness is the responsibility of the government. A welfare state may contribute to national wellbeing if institutions function well, and individuals pay a high tax rate, that in turn enables redistribution in welfare benefits and public goods provision. A dependency culture may easily set in among 'lazy and non-contributory' beneficiaries, at the expense of taxpayers. Therefore, going by the Benthamine logic, an individuals' conduct and government policies should be directed to promoting the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, without generating a culture of dependency on the state and taxpayers. -
Disagree I do not agree with that statement at all. I think that we know quite a lot about what increases national wellbeing. The only reason that I am not choosing "completely disagree" is that governments often do not systematically evaluate the impacts of their policies ex-post (and sometimes not even appraise them ex-ante), so that we could actually know even more if those simple principles of evidenced-based policy-making were to be followed. So, we know a lot about what matters, but we could know much more (causally) if governments were to conduct RCTs of their policies and include wellbeing metrics into these RCTs.
Professor Christian Krekel
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics -
Completely agree I acknowledge we have learnt a lot during the last decades about what policies could increase national wellbeing. However, the main problem is that we have focused in hedonic well-being (e.g., Subjective Well-being; SWB). However, well-being has been conceptualized from eudaimonic well-being (e.g., meaning, psychological needs, altruism). Unfortunately, we have very little knowledge from the former. Indeed, we need, urgently to explore how to improve individual and societal well-being through impacting positively the sense of autonomy, competence, relatedness, meaning, trust and gratitude (among others).
Professor Wenceslao Unanue
Assistant Professor, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez -
Agree It would appear much of the research has been about what wellbeing looks like across the life course or populations. There is a paucity of policy-testing experiments, be they lab, field or natural.
Doctor Tony Beatton
Visiting Fellow, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
World Wellbeing Panel
In September 2024, members of the World Wellbeing Panel were asked for their views on two statements relating to the overall state of knowledge in wellbeing policy. This was a follow-up on a similar poll conducted in March 2017.
The two statements were as follows:
Statement 1: Despite dozens of years of research, we still know precious little about what policies increase national wellbeing.
Statement 2: In order to find out practically what can raise national wellbeing, we still need many more experiments and policy trials in all major areas of national policy.
Response options for each statement were: “completely agree”, “agree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “disagree”, “completely disagree”.
Below are the distributions of these categorical responses, followed by a discussion. You can click where indicated to see respondents' detailed written comments.
Despite dozens of years of research, we still know precious little about what policies increase national wellbeing.
In order to find out practically what can raise national wellbeing, we still need many more experiments and policy trials in all major areas of national policy.
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Neither agree nor disagree This question is picking up on the past sentence of my answer to the previous one. I agree that more orientation towards targeting policy towards wellbeing would be useful, and some additional trials would be useful as part of this to determine preferable policies in particular national settings, but the statement goes a bit far for my liking. "All major areas of national policy" is an overstatement. There is a lot of knowledge already that can be applied by a policy-maker truly motivated to maximise the wellbeing of the population in his care. The main ingredient we need more of in order to increase the wellbeing catalysed by government expenditure in most countries today is not more experiments, but more policy-makers who are actually trying to maximise wellbeing.
Professor Gigi Foster
Associate Professor and Undergraduate Coordinator, School of Economics, UNSW Business School -
Agree Of course, there will always be a need for more research. Better knowledge is always possible in all human areas. For example, economists do not know yet how to promote economic growth, even after 80 years of studying it What really matters is that policy efforts may have a larger impact if inspired on current well-being knowledge rather than on current economic growth knowledge.
Professor Mariano Rojas
Professor of Economics, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla -
Completely agree See my answer to question 1. Where possible, experiments or natural experiments or longitudinal designs would be required. Bigger samples would also be needed as some of the effects in SWB research are rather small. But again, this is not specific to SWB research but will be desirable for much of the social sciences.
Professor Martin Binder
Professor of Socio-Economics at Bundeswehr University Munich -
Agree National well-being is influenced by a range of factors—economic, social, environmental, and psychological. Different countries and regions may respond differently to various policies. Thus, more experimentation is necessary to understand which interventions work best in specific contexts. Moreover, national well-being evolves over time, and what works today may not work in the future. Continuous experiments allow to fine tune policies as new information becomes available. Finally, as well-being is affected by policies across a wide spectrum - healthcare, education, social security, employment, environmental policy - it is important to evaluate the interactions between various interventions.
Doctor Francesco Sarracino
Economist, Research Division of the Statistical Office of Luxembourg -STATEC -
Agree We already know a lot about the effectiveness of policies targeted at particular demographic groups or sectors, such as the young, those of working age, and the retired. Raising total aggregate national wellbeing is a more ambitious goal, where the whole is likely greater than the sum of its parts. We have many parts, but we do not yet have any "magic bullets" that can easily raise national wellbeing, although many of the parts that we do have point to some promising solutions.
Professor Carol Graham
Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution -
Completely agree Of course, we do.
Professor Mohsen Joshanloo
Associate Professor (Psychology), Keimyung University, South Korea -
Completely agree I completely agree with the statement, and my response here is a natural extension of the points I made earlier regarding the challenges of raising national wellbeing (Q1). While theoretical progress has been made, particularly around understanding individual wellbeing as relative and subject to adaptation, translating these insights into actionable, effective policies requires much more empirical testing. Specifically, we need rigorous experimental evidence to identify which interventions have lasting impacts on national wellbeing, particularly in non-rival dimensions of life such as health and social capital.
Doctor Anthony Lepinteur
Research Scientist, University of Luxembourg
One of the most promising methods for advancing our understanding is through Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs). RCTs provide a robust framework for testing policies on a small scale before they are scaled up nationally. By carefully designing these trials across all major areas of national policy, we can generate credible evidence about which interventions work and, just as importantly, which do not. The key is ensuring that the results from these RCTs are generalizable, scalable and cost-effective, allowing successful interventions to be implemented on a larger scale, ultimately raising national wellbeing in a meaningful and sustainable way. -
Agree We know a lot about what factors contribute to national well-being. But we need experiments and policy trials to determine which policies work best in improving these specific factors (incomes, health, unemployment, social relations, trust, etc.).
Professor Andreas Knabe
Professor (Chair in Public Economics), Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg -
Agree we know many things that make people happier.
Professor Eugenio Proto
Alec Cairncross Professor of Applied Economics and Econometrics, University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Business School -
Completely agree Although conventional wisdom is not useless, we need additional and rigorous evidence to understand what works to improve well-being. Indeed the UK has several What Works Centres to improve and promote the use of evidence in decision making. Additionally, we can use the existing studies to more precisely address the question. As mentioned in response to the previous question, many micro-studies stop at characterizing the results for the targeted group. We could go one step further to aggregate the policy impacts at the national level to better address the present question.
Doctor Kelsey J O'Connor
Researcher in the Economics of Well-being -
Agree While we know a lot about the macro drivers of high wellbeing (prosperity, health, human rights, etc), we still need many more studies of the micro drivers. For instance, which aspects of the dwelling are most critical for residents' wellbeing; which types of psychological interventions are most effective in raising the wellbeing of people who have schizophrenia; which types of pedagogy have the biggest payoffs for students' short-term and lifelong wellbeing? These are just a few examples of the large number of evaluations of policy interventions that could be analysed through a subjective wellbeing lens which would give practical guidance to policymakers in the relevant fields.
Professor Arthur Grimes
Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington -
Agree It is true however that only if policy follows wellbeing recommendation and countries focus on those things that matter (economic stability over times of large growth followed with large crisis; jobs for everyone) can we be reassured that it does increased wellbeing. At the moment, these findings come from that mostly compare either people who experience the changes or across people. In this sense, for example, programs on minimum income would require a profound analysis to study if indeed economic certainty increased wellbeing, as non-causal estimates find. We can at this moment defend that we know what increases wellbeing, given the current situation. Once we change that, we do not know. Experiments would bring us closer to know this.
Professor Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Professor of Economics, IAE-CSIC -
Agree We can always know more, particularly in the area of participative democracy, free media, and the challenges of new technology (social media, AI, etc.). Experiments would be very welcome!
Professor Paul Frijters
Professorial Research Fellow, CEP Wellbeing Programme, London School of Economics -
Neither agree nor disagree The willingess to evaluate the consequences of policy changes (and outright policy experiments) are, of course, welcome. However, it is as least as important to understand under what conditions evidence actually affects policy choices. Moreover, there is still much to learn from the variation in public policies in federal states.
Professor Alois Stutzer
Professor of Political Economics, University of Basel -
Completely agree There are many areas where further research is needed to identify well-being policies that can be effective today. I will mention just two examples. Parents play a key role in their children's current and future well-being, and children’s emotional well-being is the strongest predictor of life satisfaction in adulthood (Clark et al., 2018). However, as psychologist Jonathan Haidt has observed, parental educational activity has become more inadequate in the last decade. Although interventions to support parenting could be cost-effective (e.g., Baulos, Garcìa and Heckman, 2024), it is unclear what the specific characteristics of the interventions and the conditions necessary for the desired result are, especially in advanced countries (Dadisman et al., 2024). Second example: smartphones and related services have dramatically increased the potential for greater well-being, but their intensive use has rather led to the spread of depression and anxiety, especially among young people. While studies are numerous, policy prescriptions are few and problematic (Pugno, 2024).
Professor Maurizio Pugno
Full Professor of Economics, University of Cassino -
Disagree While randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have their benefits, such as establishing causality, implementing them at a national level may not be appropriate or feasible; more direct approaches to analyse policy interventions with faster results might be more appropriate.
Professor Talita Greyling
Professor, School of Economics, University of Johannesburg -
Agree Yes, wherever policy trials, phasing, and randomization are possible, they should be carried out. This is still not part of most government culture but it is unarguably a good idea. However, this principle is important regardless of whether one's objective is wellbeing.
Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Associate Professor, McGill University
As I have explained in "Life satisfaction and sustainability: a policy framework," (SN Social Sciences, doi:10.1007/s43545-021-00185-8, July 2021), and elsewhere, most of the knowledge needed to make good policy is not about wellbeing. It is about understanding returns on investment of various kinds. Knowledge about what makes for a good life is most useful only when one has all that other systems knowledge about cause and effect in society. And policy trials, etc are an important part of understanding those dynamics. -
Agree Given that the existing knowledge mainly relies on survey evidence (much of which is correlational) validation in terms of experiments and policy trials is still much needed. This applies in particular to issues of development economics (following the work of Banerjee and Duflo which, to my knowledge, largely disregarded subjective wellbeing).
Professor Heinz Welsch
Professor of Economics, University of Oldenburg -
Agree Happiness is a subjective issue. Many experiments have been conducted at the national and individual level. Since change is happening so fast, and many people do not have adequate time to adjust to the changing technological and labour market environments and geo-political situation. Accordingly, more research can be conducted about these changes. People also need to understand that signs of a deterioration in democracy in certain regions, conflict situations, social media, migration of people from Africa and Muslim countries to Europe, disrupt breed 'weird' behaviours that disrupt living conditions, and artificial Intelligence may have an impact on security, peaceful livelihood, and wellbeing. Therefore, research has to extend from personal and national considerations.
Professor Darma Mahadea
Associate Professor and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa -
Completely agree Absolutely. :-)
Professor Christian Krekel
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics -
Completely agree I completely agree. In fact, In “to find out practically what can raise national wellbeing, we still need many more experiments and policy trials in all major areas of national policy. However, I think that longitudinal/panel surveys are very important as well natural experiments.
Professor Wenceslao Unanue
Assistant Professor, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez -
Agree And to do this we need politicians and Government participate. Many elected representatives settle for the collection of wellbeing-related factors, e.g. trust or acceptance of democracy, instead of testing/piloting policies alternatives before they are implemented in the community. Such feed forward systems have at best a 50% probability of success. Success itself seems to be a moving feat. Seldom do elected representatives/Government share the goal details of their recommended policies with the people. Of course, it is not in their interested to do so, after all, a failed policy(s) is the fast-track to the opposition benches.
Doctor Tony Beatton
Visiting Fellow, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
There was a strong, though not unanimous consensus against the statement that "Despite dozens of years of research, we still know precious little about what policies increase national wellbeing."
Interestingly, while only four out of 22 respondents answered Agree or Completely Agree, no one chose the Completely disagree response. Instead, 16 out of 22 respondents chose the slightly more moderate Disagree option, suggesting some sympathy for the idea that our knowledge is still limited. By contrast, when we last asked this question in 2017, 16 responses out of 24 were nearly evenly split between Disagree and Completely Disagree, while a significant fraction (7 out of 24) Agreed or Strongly Agreed with the statement.
Turning to the panel's written explanations, there was general consensus that we have made progress in our understanding of how policies affect wellbeing, and that the body of knowledge relevant to the question is substantial. Several also mentioned that this body of knowledge has grown significantly in recent years, and that the evidence includes outcomes of experiments. Panelists cited four forms of evidence that this knowledge is substantial: (i) reviews and reference works about wellbeing and wellbeing policy (Welsch,); (ii) examples of life circumstances which have been shown to be important for wellbeing, (iii) the existence and accomplishments of knowledge synthesis organizations such as What Works Wellbeing and the Campaign to End Loneliness, both in the UK (Graham), and (iv) a shift in public concerns towards interest in mental health and loneliness.
A number of panelists gave examples of individual circumstances or policy priorities which we know lead to higher wellbeing, and Frijters even suggested a specific policy portfolio.
Respondents in both Agree and Disagree camps offered explanations of why wellbeing policy is still not widespread even though we have learned a lot about the determinants of wellbeing. For instance, even if knowledge about improving wellbeing is not esoteric, it will not matter without the will of policymakers to make wellbeing the purpose of their efforts, or without appropriate training of policymakers to overcome previous education stressing the overarching importance of narrower outcomes. Conversely, the knowlege may still be esoteric due to a lack of appropriate translation of the academic research to the language of policy. Panelists mentioned that while the body of knowledge is extensive, it is still largely characterized by low causal confidence (Binder, Krekel), making it insecure for policy implementation. Another challenge with translating evidence to policy is that old prescriptions may no longer work as the economic, social, and technological environment changes (Pugno).
Frequently mentioned was the distinction between an understanding of what explains differences or changes in wellbeing in a population, on one hand, versus knowledge about the feasibility and effectiveness of relevant policy initiatives, on the other (e.g. Lepinteur, Knabe). A related issue was the distinction between "micro" level knowledge — i.e., about determinants of wellbeing at the level of individuals — versus knowing what will work at the aggregate level, where spillovers and distributional constraints may be at play. However, some respondents explicitly cited evidence about that "macro" level, indicating that we also know plenty about which policy priorities lead to high national wellbeing, from comparing across countries (Grimes).
Joshanloo cited the remaining uncertainties around the choice of life evaluation question wording, the comparison of different measures, and the challenge of cross-cultural comparisons as significant barriers to effective wellbeing policymaking.
As is usually the case, we did not define wellbeing or "national wellbeing" as part of the question we posed. While most respondents implicitly or explicitly referred to the literature on subjective, cognitive life evaluations, some respondents referred to different concepts or frameworks of wellbeing (Unanue, Greyling), or made reference to individual wellbeing being distinct from national wellbeing (Mahadea). This is a question the World Wellbeing Panel addressed in our previous poll.
Many nuances to these ideas lie in the insights of individuals' responses. Please see the detailed answers.
The second statement considered by our panelists was "In order to find out practically what can raise national wellbeing, we still need many more experiments and policy trials in all major areas of national policy." This was rephrased from the version we posed in 2017, which was "In order to find out what raises national wellbeing, we need to have thousands of randomised controlled trials in all major areas of national policy." To the 2017 version, 17 respondents expressed disagreement, while four agreed (and three were in the middle). This time we had the opposite response: 19 agreed while only one disagreed (and two hedged). The disagreement in 2017 was largely related to the limitations of RCTs, both in practicality and in scalability or external validity.
While agreeing that trials and experiments are useful, many nevertheless emphasized caveats echoed from responses to the first poll question. For instance, Foster emphasizes political will over the excuse of insufficient knowledge, writing that "we need ... not more experiments, but more policy-makers who are actually trying to maximise wellbeing." Rojas agrees, reminding us that "economists do not know yet how to promote economic growth, even after 80 years of studying it. What really matters is that policy efforts may have a larger impact if inspired on current well-being knowledge rather than on current economic growth knowledge."
On the other hand, even if we agreed on knowing an enormous amount about improving wellbeing, we would still want to pursue policy experiments, continuously, whenever possible. This is because impacts known from the past or from another geography may not apply to a given current population and epoch (Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Mahadea), not least because interactions between various policy interventions make each policy novel (Sarracino).
Many respondents built on their answers to the first statement, and suggested that empirical testing of policies could overcome the challenges noted above. These included, for different respondents, a need to better test how policies scale up (O'Connor) and, conversely, a need to more narrowly target micro drivers of wellbeing, for instance for particular sub-populations or for specific feasible interventions (Grimes).
It is also important to know whether the evidence from experiments will impact, or be ignored by, policy makers (Stutzer).
Just as some pointed out that our limits to knowledge about the effects of policy are not unique to the field of wellbeing, so too the value of policy experimentation transcends policy objectives. In particular, even if wellbeing is one's policy goal, most of what one needs to know about the expected outcome of a policy intervention is not about wellbeing, but rather about intermediate, objective outcomes. Thus, the argument in favour of experiments and policy trials is as strong as the desire for evidence-based policy, more broadly (Barrington-Leigh).
Indeed, a more fundamental problem than an insufficiency of wellbeing-motivated testing and piloting of policies is the lack of any specific detail about the goals associated with enacted policies. That is, making the expectations and objectives more transparent when a policy is introduced may not be in governments' political interests, but would be a better starting point for learning about what works (Beatton).
References
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