Why Inequality Matters: Lessons for Policy from the Economics of Happiness

This conference entitled, “Why Inequality Matters: Lesson for Policy from the Economics of Happiness,” was organized jointly by Carol Graham of Brookings and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick. The conference brought together experts in the fields of behavioral economics, inequality, and health and discussed the latest developments in research exploring the linkages between inequality, poverty, health, social welfare policy, and subjective well being in both developed and developing country contexts.

Read the transcript of the first day

Read the transcript of the second day

Conference materials:

Full conference
brochure

Does Happiness Pay? An Exploration based on Panel Data from Russia, Carol Graham, Andrew Eggers, and Sandip Sukhtankar

Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier? Jonathan Gruber and Sendhil Mullainathan

American Inequality and Its Consequences, Gary Burtless and Christopher Jencks

Lives of Life-Years? Cass R. Sunstein

Rank Dependence in Pay Satisfaction, Gordon D.A. Brown, Jonathan Gardner, Andrew Oswald, Jing Qian

The Social Gradient in Health and Well-Being, Michael Marmot

Are Positional Externalities Different from Other Externalities?, Robert H. Frank

Presenters included:

Henry J Aaron (The Brookings Institution)
Roland J.M. Benabou (Princeton University)

Gordon Brown (University of Warwick)

Gary Burtless (The Brookings Institution)

Angus Deaton (Princeton University)
Ed Diener (University of Illinois)
Rafael Di Tella (Harvard Business School)

Andrew Eggers (The Brookings Institution)

Robert Frank (Cornell University)
Bruno S. Frey (University of Zurich)
Jonathan Gardner (Watson Wyatt Ltd UK)
Carol Graham (The Brookings Institution)
Jonathan Gruber (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Christopher Jencks (Harvard University)
Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University)
Alan Krueger (Princeton University)
Robert MacCulloch (Princeton University)
Michael Marmot (University College, London)
Sendhil Mullainathan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Andrew Oswald (University of Warwick)
Jing Qian (University of Warwick)
David Schkade, (University of Texas)
Norbert Schwarz, (University of Michigan)
Arthur Stone (Stony Brook University)
Alois Stutzer (University of Zurich)
Cass Sunstein (University of Chicago)
Sandip Sukhtankar (The Brookings Institution)
Richard Wilkinson (University of Nottingham Medical School)