International Happiness

David G. Blanchflower, Andrew J. Oswald

NBER Working Paper No. 16668
Issued in January 2011
NBER Program(s):   HE   LS

This paper describes the findings from a new, and intrinsically interdisciplinary, literature on happiness and human well-being. The paper focuses on international evidence. We report the patterns in modern data; we discuss what has been persuasively established and what has not; we suggest paths for future research. Looking ahead, our instinct is that this social-science research avenue will gradually merge with a related literature -- from the medical, epidemiological, and biological sciences -- on biomarkers and health. Nevertheless, we expect that intellectual convergence to happen slowly.

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Acknowledgments

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