Happiness Explained

What human flourishing is and what we can do to promote it

Paul Anand

Answers questions such as: Why are the Danes the happiest people on the planet? Who is harmed by having successful neighbours?
Provides a novel non-technical overview of human wellbeing including the latest evidence from psychology and economics
Integrates behavioural evidence into a non-utilitarian ethical framework
Argues for and illustrates a new approach to policy and practice in education, health services, and economics
Helps readers understand what wellbeing is and how it can be measured and analysed

Happiness Explained

What human flourishing is and what we can do to promote it

Paul Anand

Description

What is human happiness and how can we promote it?

These questions are central to human existence and Happiness Explained draws on scientific research from economics, psychology, and philosophy, as well as a range of other disciplines, to outline a new paradigm in which human flourishing plays a central role in the assessment of national and global progress. It shows why the traditional national income approach is limited as a measure of human wellbeing and demonstrates how the contributors to happiness, wellbeing, and quality of life can be measured and understood across the human life course. Discussing wide-ranging aspects, from parenting, decent employment, friendship, education, and health in old age, through to money, autonomy, and fairness, as well as personal strategies and governmental polices used in the pursuit of happiness, it offers a science-based understanding of human flourishing.

Written by an economist involved in helping governmental organisations move 'beyond GDP', Happiness Explained shows how a wide range of factors that contribute to better and happier lives and how, together, they provide a new blueprint for the assessment of progress in terms of personal wellbeing.

Happiness Explained

What human flourishing is and what we can do to promote it

Paul Anand

1: The Need to Go Beyond GDP
2: Human Flourishing
3: The Wellbeing Space - What it is and How we are Doing?
4: Quality of Life in Childhood and Older Age
5: The Economics of Happiness and Wellbeing
6: Psychological Motivation, Interactions, and Strategies
7: Fairness and Justice
8: International and Policy Perspectives
9: Progress as Human Development

Happiness Explained

What human flourishing is and what we can do to promote it

Paul Anand

Author Information

Paul Anand, Professor of Economics at the Open University and Research Associate at Oxford University

Paul Anand is an economist involved in helping governmental organizations move beyond GDP. He has held posts at Oxford University where he obtained his doctorate on the foundations of rational choice. He has written extensively on quality of life issues through research funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Board. He has contributed to a number of journal boards including the Journal of Economic Psychology and been a member of research commissioning panels for the ESRC and NHS. He also has long standing interests in the utilization of research having worked closely for a number of years with the Statistics Directorate of the OECD and the UK Office of National Statistics Task force. He is a professor of Economics Decision Sciences and Philosophy at the Open University and a research associate in Oxford University and the LSE. He has been a founder of the Oxford Foundation for Knowledge Exchange and is a Fellow of the Human Capability and Development Association.

Happiness Explained

What human flourishing is and what we can do to promote it

Paul Anand

Reviews and Awards

"Happiness Explained is ... a useful primer for a non-technical reader setting out to understand this complex field" - Tom Startup, Times Literary Supplement

"Paul Anand's brilliant book on happiness is also a fine contribution to the ethical foundations of economics. It combines exceptional lucidity with analytical rigour, and shows that the so-called dismal science need not be dismal at all." - Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University

"A helpful introduction for beginners to the current state of happiness research" - Choice

"Economists are usually shy about happiness. Paul Anand is not. He writes with verve and clarity about ways to understand, measure, and promote human happiness. Drawing on psychology and philosophy as well as economics, he discusses how governments - and individuals - can increase the sum of happiness and quality of life. He offers a readable and intriguing guide to what ought to be - but rarely is - one of the most important policy issues for any government." - Frances Cairncross, previously Rector of Exeter College, Oxford

"Seeks to answer the most important question of all . . . and makes a convincing case for a schooling that cultivates the mind while developing young peoples good character and wellbeing." - Lord OShaughnessy, founder of Floreat Education

"Essential reading for anyone who has questioned that we are simply homo economici motivated solely or even primarily, by individualism and the endless pursuit of material wealth... insightful as it is pragmatic." - Health Prince, Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Policy, Austin Texas

"Shows how the capability approach of Sen and Nussbaum can be made operational and integrates the most important insights from the booming empirical literature on subjective happiness. This book will be a source of inspiration for everybody who believes that material consumption is not the only contributor to individual wellbeing." - Erik Schokkaert, Department of Economics, University of Leuven

Happiness Explained

What human flourishing is and what we can do to promote it

Paul Anand

From Our Blog

"The economics of happiness" - an extract from Happiness Explained

What is happiness and how can we promote it? These questions are central to human existence and human flourishing now plays a central role in the assessment of national and global progress. Paul Anand shows why the traditional national income approach is limited as a measure of human wellbeing and demonstrates how the contributors to happiness, wellbeing, and quality of life can be measured and understood across the human life course. The following extract looks at the connection between income and wellbeing.

Posted on March 20, 2016

Read the blog post