Carol L. Graham - Böcker

Subjective well being, or happiness, has been analyzed in detail by psychologists for decades. Yet only recently has it become the subject of economic analysis. In Happiness and Hardship, Carol Graham and Stefano Pettinato provide a new conceptual framework for analyzing the relationship between subjective well being and the political sustainability of market-oriented economic growth in 17 Latin American countries and Russia. Several variables—such as marital status, employment, and inflation—are known to influence happiness. Graham and Pettinato have identified other variables that have important effects on how individuals perceive their well being: macroeconomic volatility, globalization of information, increasing income mobility, and inequality driven by technology-led growth. The authors begin by explaining data and measurement problems involved in studying mobility, and they summarize general trends in developing countries. Second, they provide new data on subjective well being for Latin America and Russia. They find that the socio-demographic determinants of ""happiness""—such as the effects of age and unemployment—are very similar to those in the U.S. and Europe. They also find that relative income differences have important effects on how individuals assess their well being. Those in the middle or lower middle of the income distribution are more likely to be dissatisfied than are the very poorest groups. Third, the authors find that volatility in income flows can have negative effects on perceived well being, even among upwardly mobile individuals. Finally, the authors explore the relationship between social capital and mobility. They distinguish between participation driven by economic necessity—such as soup kitchens—and voluntary participation in civic organizations. They find that different objectives underlying civic participation can result in different effects on individual mobility rates, on perceived well being, and on aggregate growth. An

The ""quality of life"" concept of quality of life is a broad one. It incorporates basic needs but also extends beyond them to include capabilities, the ""livability"" of the environment, and life appreciation and happiness. Latin America's diversity in culture and levels of development provide a laboratory for studying how quality of life varies with a number of objective and subjective measures. These measures range from income levels to job insecurity and satisfaction, to schooling attainment and satisfaction, to measured and self-assessed health, among others.Paradox and Perception greatly improves our understanding of the determinants of well-being in Latin America based on a broad ""quality of life"" concept that challenges some standard assumptions in economics, including those about the relationship between happiness and income.The authors' analysis builds upon a number of new approaches in economics, particularly those related to the study of happiness and finds a number of paradoxes as the region's respondents evaluate their well-being. These include the paradox of unhappy growth at the macroeconomic level, happy peasants and frustrated achievers at the microlevel, and surprisingly high levels of satisfaction with public services among the region's poorest. They also have important substantive links with several of the region's realities, such as high levels of income inequality, volatile macroeconomic performance, and low expectations of public institutions and faith in the capacity of the state to deliver. Identifying these perceptions, paradoxes, and their causes will contribute to the crafting of better public policies, as well as to our understanding of why ""populist"" politics still pervade in much of the region.

A Brookings Institution Press and the Center for Global Development publicationThe plight of the poorest around the world has been pushed to the forefront of America's international agenda for the first time in many years by the war on terrorism and the formidable challenges presented by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In March 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). This bilateral development fund represents an increase of $5 billion per year over current assistance levels and establishes of a new agency to promote growth in reform-oriented developing countries.Amounting to a doubling of U.S. bilateral development aid—the largest increase in decades—the MCA offers a critical chance to deliberately shape the face that the United States presents to people in poor nations around the world. This book makes concrete recommendations on crafting a new blueprint for distributing and delivering aid to make the MCA an effective tool, not only in its own right, but also in transforming U.S. foreign aid and strengthening international aid cooperation more generally.The book tackles head on the tension between foreign policy and development goals that chronically afflicts U.S. foreign assistance; the danger of being dismissed as one more instance of the United States going it alone instead of buttressing international cooperation; and the risk of exacerbating confusion among the myriad overlapping U.S. policies, agencies, and programs targeted at developing nations, particularly USAID.In doing so, The Other War draws important lessons from new international development initiatives, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, the mixed record of previous U.S. aid efforts, trends in the U.S. budget for foreign assistance, the agencies currently involved in administering U.S. development policy, and the importance of the relationship between Congress and the executive branch in determining aid outcomes. The MCA holds the promise of substantially increasing U.S. development assistance and piolicy, and the importance of the relationship between Congress and the executive branch in determining aid outcomes. The MCA holds the promise of substantially increasing U.S. development assistance and pioneering a new era in aid, but the authors caution against creating yet another example of wasted aid that could undermine political support for foreign assistance for decades to come.

In The Pursuit of Happiness, renowned economist Carol Graham explores what we know about the determinants of happiness and clearly presents both the promise and the potential pitfalls of injecting the ""economics of happiness"" into public policymaking. While the book spotlights the innovative contributions of happiness research to the dismal science, it also raises a cautionary note about the issues that still need to be addressed before policymakers can make best use of them.

This book studies the effects of incorporating market incentives into the public goods arena. Carol Graham examines the effects of market-based strategies on the performance of public institutions, the political sustainability of market reforms, and equity. In so doing, she examines a variety of reform experiences in the realms of education, health, social security, and state- owned enterprises and across a range of country and income contexts, with case studies drawn from Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.The studies show that the incorporation of new market incentives, such as vouchers in education and private social security systems, can have positive effects on the performance of public institutions. The effects on equity are less clear, however, and in many cases efficiency gains entail short-term equity losses. The poorest sectors are usually least equipped to take advantage of new incentives and may be marginalized from the reforms and lose access to essential services. Yet in the long-term, negative equity effects are usually counter-balanced by the benefits of enhancing the performance of public institutions. As this book makes clear, the issues explored have relevance for advanced industrial societies as well as for developing economies.