Life satisfaction and sustainability: a policy framework Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh

Abstract The growing maturity of the “science of happiness” raises the prospect of en- abling government policy to be more accountable to the measurable subjective experience of the population. [...] The second key to the construction of a consensus model of the determinants of SWL is to increase the contribution of policy experiments and policy evaluations towards the evidence base. [...] For example, in the case of greenhouse gases, a plan to stop the expansion of emis- sions could have been put in place in the late 20th century while further studies sought better precision on the future risks.3 More generally, our extraction of material re- sources from the earth and our addition of material pollutants to natural reservoirs could be subject to controls, sometimes in the form of e. [...] For instance, it could target the average (akin in ethical narrowness to pursuing a higher GDP, or average income), or the median, or any more complex aggregate, in which some extra emphasis is invariably given to the improvement of the lives of those at the bottom of the distribution. [...] The intent here is, first, to convey the sense that the science and economics of hap- piness is mature enough to support a global re-orientation of policy-making; second, to fill in the missing piece of how such a world can approach sustainability questions that are not yet sufficiently amenable to the life satisfaction approach; and third, to explain the role of an institutional layer dealing wit.