THE HAPPINESS EQUATION: THE SURPRISING ECONOMICS OF OUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET
Why is marriage worth £200,000 a year?
Why will having children make you unhappy?
Why does happiness from winning the lottery take two years to arrive?
Why does time heal the pain of divorce or the death of a loved one - but not unemployment?
Everybody wants to be happy. But how much happiness - precisely - will each life choice bring? Should I get married? Am I really going to feel happy about the career that I picked? How can I decide not only which choice is better for us, but how much it's better for us?
The results of new, unique research, The Happiness Equation brings to a general readership for the first time the new science of happiness economics.
It describes how we can measure emotional reactions to different life experiences and present them in ways we can relate to. How, for instance, monetary vales can be put on things that can't be bought or sold in the market - such as marriage, friendship, even death - so that we can objectively put them in order of preference. It also explains why some things matter more to our happiness than others (like why seeing friends is worth more than a Ferrari), while others are worth almost nothing (like sunny weather).
Nick Powdthavee - whose work on happiness has been discussed on both the Undercover Economist and Freakonomics blogs - bring cutting-edge research on how we value happiness to a general audience, with a style that wears its learning lightly and is a joy to read.
'An important, readable, incisive, and often marvelously funny book. The author is an international expert in the field and his deep knowledge shines through in the prose'
Andrew Oswald, University of Warwick
'An adventure to one of the new frontiers of knowledge, this book is a masterful blend of personal experience, contemporary culture, and social science'
Richard Easterlin, Professor of Economics, University of Southern California
You can now pre-order The Happiness Equation from the following good online book stores:
*****
Alison Flood, a journalist writing for the Wired Magazine, had recently spotted a typo on p. 89 in The Happiness Equation (proof version) which has already gone to print. The income coefficient of '0.38' should really have been '0.038'. The calculated shadow prices are correct, however (since 0.038 has been used instead of 0.38 in all of the calculations). The problem has been rectified for future prints, but it's too late for the first edition :) Oh well!.
*****
Dr. Nattavudh Powdthavee (ณัฐวุฒิ เผ่าทวี)
Lecturer
Department of Economics & Related Studies,
University of York,
Heslington,
York,
YO10 5DD
Tel: +(44) 07990 815924
Email: np517@york.ac.uk;n_powdthavee@hotmail.com
IZA Research Fellow
Research interests
Applied microeconometrics, happiness data, health economics, labour economics, experimental and behavioural economics.
You can download my complete CV here (updated 17/08/2010)
Date of Birth
31st of August, 1978
Nationality
Thai, with Permanent Residence status in the UK
Education
2001-2005 PhD in Economics, The University of Warwick, UK
Thesis title: "Essays on the Use of Subjective Well-Being Data in Economic
Analysis: An Empirical Study Using Developed and Developing Countries
Data" (download PDF)
Supervisors: Professor Andrew Oswald and Dr Jeff Round
2000-2001 MSc in Economics, The University of Warwick, UK
1997-2000 BSc in Economics and Management, Brunel University, UK
1993-1997 St. Lawrence College, Ramsgate, Kent, UK
Pre-1993 Vajiravudh College, Bangkok, Thailand
Employment
2008- Lecturer, Department of Economics
and Related Studies, University of York
2005-2008 Research officer, Centre for Economics of
Education, The Institute of
Education, University of London
2002-2005 Teaching Assistant, Department of
Economics, The University of Warwick