The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. ABSTRACT We explore the relationships between subjective well-being and income, as seen across individuals within a given country, between countries in a given year, and as a country grows through time. We show that richer individuals in a given country are m...

Most analyses of the East Asian financial crisis have focused on its causes and the links between currency and banking crises. However a related question is what happens in the aftermath of a crisis? What factors determine the path of an economy in the post-devaluation phase? Does it swiftly bounce back, with the crisis being followed by a period of economic recovery, or does it face a period o...

Globally, road traffic injuries accounted for about 1.36 million deaths in 2015 and are projected to become the fourth leading cause of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost by 2030. One-fifth of these deaths occurred in South Asia where road traffic injuries are projected to increase by 144% by 2020. Despite this rapidly increasing disease burden there is limited evidence on the economic...

Conjoint action is possible just in proportion as human beings can rely on each other. There are countries in Europe, of first-rate industrial capabilities, where the most serious impediment to conducting business concerns on a large scale, is the rarity of persons who are supposed fit to be trusted with the receipt and expenditure of large sums of money. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Politic...

The concept of human development has recently emerged to rival economic development as a worldwide objective of public policy. In assessing human welfare, advocates of this concept would, at a minimum, place indicators of social conditions, notably life expectancy and educational achievement, on equal footing with traditional economic measures like GDP per capita and a poverty index; some would...