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Self-reported wellbeing indicators are a valuable complement to traditional economic indicators but aren’t yet ready to compete with them
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Self-reported wellbeing indicators are a valuable complement to traditional economic indicators but aren’t yet ready to compete with them

Author

Listed:
  • Dan Benjamin

    (University of Southern California and NBER)

  • Kristen Cooper

    (Gordon College)

  • Ori Heffetz

    (Cornell University)

  • Miles Kimball

    (University of Colorado Boulder and NBER)

Abstract

We join the call for governments to routinely collect survey-based measures of self-reported wellbeing and for researchers to study them. We list a number of challenges that have to be overcome in order for these measures to eventually achieve a status competitive with traditional economic indicators. We discuss in more detail one of the challenges, comprehensiveness: single-question wellbeing measures do not seem to fully capture what people care about. We briefly review the existing evidence, suggesting that survey respondents, when asked to make real or hypothetical tradeoffs, would not always choose to maximize their predicted response to single-question wellbeing measures. The deviations appear systematic, and persist under conditions where alternative explanations are less plausible. We also review an approach for combining single-question measures into a more comprehensive wellbeing index—an approach that itself is not free of ongoing theoretical and implementational challenges, but that we view as a promising direction.

Suggested Citation

  • Dan Benjamin & Kristen Cooper & Ori Heffetz & Miles Kimball, 2019. "Self-reported wellbeing indicators are a valuable complement to traditional economic indicators but aren’t yet ready to compete with them," GRU Working Paper Series GRU_2019_029, City University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics and Finance, Global Research Unit.
    • Handle: RePEc:cth:wpaper:gru_2019_029
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    Cited by:

    1. Godoy, Ricardo & Bauchet, Jonathan & Behrman, Jere R. & Huanca, Tomás & Leonard, William R. & Reyes-García, Victoria & Rosinger, Asher & Tanner, Susan & Undurraga, Eduardo A. & Zycherman, Ariela, 2024. "Changes in adult well-being and economic inequalities: An exploratory observational longitudinal study (2002–2010) of micro-level trends among Tsimane’, a small-scale rural society of Indigenous Peopl," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    2. Daniel J Benjamin & Jakina Debnam Guzman & Marc Fleurbaey & Ori Heffetz & Miles Kimball, 2023. "What do Happiness Data Mean? Theory and Survey Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2377-2412.
    3. Daniel J. Benjamin & Kristen Cooper & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball, 2023. "From Happiness Data to Economic Conclusions," NBER Working Papers 31727, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Seth Garz & Xavier Gine & Dean Karlan & Rafe Mazer & Caitlin Sanford & Jonathan Zinman, 2021. "Consumer Protection for Financial Inclusion in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Bridging Regulator and Academic Perspectives," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 219-246, November.
    5. Lane, Tom, 2022. "Intrinsic preferences for unhappy news," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 119-130.
    6. Alpaslan Akay & Olivier B. Bargain & H. Xavier Jara, 2023. "Experienced versus decision utility: large‐scale comparison for income–leisure preferences," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(4), pages 823-859, October.
    7. Larry Dwyer, 2023. "Why tourism economists should treat resident well-being more seriously," Tourism Economics, , vol. 29(8), pages 1975-1994, December.
    8. David A. Comerford & Leonhard K. Lades, 2022. "Responsibility utility and the difference between preference and desirance: implications for welfare evaluation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(2), pages 201-224, February.
    9. Nathaniel W. Anderson & Anna J. Markowitz & Daniel Eisenberg & Neal Halfon & Kristin Anderson Moore & Frederick J. Zimmerman, 2022. "The Child and Adolescent Thriving Index 1.0: Developing a Measure of the Outcome Indicators of Well-Being for Population Health Assessment," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(6), pages 2015-2042, December.
    10. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier & Jara Tamayo, H. Xavier, 2023. "Experienced versus decision utility: large-scale comparison for income-leisure preferences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117746, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Kristen Cooper & Mark Fabian & Christian Krekel, 2023. "New approaches to measuring welfare," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 123-135, June.
    12. McGuire, Joel & Kaiser, Caspar & Bach-Mortensen, Anders, 2020. "The impact of cash transfers on subjective well-being and mental health in low- and middle- income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis," SocArXiv ydr54, Center for Open Science.

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