幸福の経済学
●Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod, “The unhappy thing about happiness economics（pdf）”（Real-world economics review, issue no.46, May 20, 2008）
There are at least two alternative interpretations to the mainstream view that happiness has remained flat over decades because economic growth does not make us happier. First, we could conclude from this flat trend that attempting to improve the human lot through any policy – not just through pursuing economic growth - is entirely futile. Second, and alternatively, that happiness data over time shows little movement because it is an extremely insensitive measure of welfare.
We argue that the evidence points to the latter. This can be demonstrated both from empirical reasoning and by examining the mathematical properties of the measure itself.
Above all, we argue that average happiness time series are, by construction, incapable of conveying useful information on the level of overall social wellbeing, and their use should therefore be rejected by policy-makers and social scientists.
Our inexorable conclusion is therefore that society-wide happiness time series should be abandoned as they don’t tell the social scientist anything useful; in addition, the flatness of happiness time series most certainly cannot be pinned on the economic system, and neither do they point to some kind of social aberration in need of government correction.
Average happiness has shown demonstrably stubborn flatness despite vastly differing government styles and levels of inequality, and it is seriously misleading to argue that, armed with the ‘insights’ of time-series happiness research, government intervention is going to make society measurably happier.
●Alan Wolfe, “Hedonic Man； The new economics and the pursuit of happiness（pdf）”（The New Republic, July 09, 2008）
まだ途中までしか目通してませんけど、出だしから何だか反経済学的な（というか反フリードマン的な）雰囲気がプンプンと。
（Wolfe氏の記事に対する追記）
レービットをbehavioral economistsの一員として括っているのはどうなんだろう？ レービットのbehavioral economicsに対する評価については以下を参照。
●“I Get to Pretend That I Am a Scientist for a Day…”（Freakonomics, February 15, 2008）
上のエントリーの元となっている論説“Homo economicus Evolves”（with John A. List）の全文はEconomist's View（こちら）で読むことができる*1。
レービットのbehavioral economicsに対するヨリ直接的で率直な評価は以下のエントリーの冒頭に表れている。Wolfe氏も上の記事中で触れている『Nudge』*2に対するレービットの感想と併せてどうぞ。
●“Nudge”（Freakonomics, April 11, 2008）
ついでながら、ArielyがNew York Timesに寄稿した以下の記事（＝とりわけガソリン価格の上昇が消費者を憤慨させるのは何故だろうか？）は面白かった。確かマンキュー先生もブログで紹介してたはず。
●Dan Ariely, “Eyes Off the Price”（New York Times, July 19, 2008）
*1:文中の注[11]で参考文献として挙げられているのはおそらく以下であろう。簡略版はこちら。
John A. List and Steven D. Levitt, “What Do Laboratory Experiments Tell Us About the Real World?（pdf）”
