Happiness and public policy: A challenge to the profession
Happiness and public policy: A challenge to the profession
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1468-0297.2006.01073.x
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发表时间：
2006-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Layard, R
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Layard, R
公共经济学背后的理论需要彻底改革。它无法解释人类福利的近代史，也忽略了现代心理学的一些重要发现。事实上，这两种缺陷是紧密联系在一起的：正是因为该理论忽视了心理学，它才无法解释事实。事实是，尽管购买力大幅提高，但西方人并不比50年前更幸福。我们从人口调查和其他支持性证据中了解到这一点，我将对此加以审查。最明显的解释来自新幸福心理学的三个标准发现。1首先，一个人的幸福会受到他人收入的负面影响（负外部性）。第二，一个人的幸福感会很快适应更高的收入水平（一种成瘾现象）。第三，我们的品味不是天生的——我们从所拥有的东西中获得的快乐很大程度上是由文化决定的。这些发现对公共经济学的理论和结论提出了挑战，如阿特金森和斯蒂格利茨（1980）所述。公共经济学面临的挑战是，既要纳入现代心理学的发现，又要保持成本效益框架的严谨性，这是我们这门学科的优势和荣耀。在下文中，我将首先回顾一下幸福的衡量方法。然后，我将逐一讨论我所讨论的三个发现，并探讨它们各自的政策含义。我将以一些总体反思作为结束。
The theory behind public economics needs radical reform. It fails to explain the recent history of human welfare and it ignores some of the key findings of modern psychology. Indeed these two failings are intimately linked: it is because the theory ignores psychology that it is unable to explain the facts. The fact is that, despite massive increases in purchasing power, people in the West are no happier than they were fifty years ago. We know this from population surveys and other supporting evidence which I shall review. The most obvious explanations come from three standard findings of the new psychology of happiness. 1 First, a person’s happiness is negatively affected by the incomes of others (a negative externality). Second, a person’s happiness adapts quite rapidly to higher levels of income (a phenomenon of addiction). And third, our tastes are not given–the happiness we get from what we have is largely culturally determined.These findings provide a challenge to the theory and conclusions of public economics, as set out for example in Atkinson and Stiglitz (1980). The challenge to public economics is to incorporate the findings of modern psychology while retaining the rigour of the cost–benefit framework which is the strength and glory of our subject. 2 In what follows I shall first review the measurement of happiness. Then I shall take the three findings that I discussed one by one, and pursue the policy implications of each of them. I shall end with some overall reflections.