Where Will Research Go in
the Coming Century?
Andrew Oswald
IZA and Warwick
Our future?
The dividing lines between health
economists, well-being
researchers, psychiatry
researchers, biological scientists,
etc, will become increasingly
blurry.
Today I’d like to suggest a
number of ideas.
Some perhaps unusual
Self-reported health and number of
daily portions of fruit and veg
Chart 1d. Self reported health and portions of fruit & vegetables, Scotland, 2008/9
4.3
4.2
4.1
4
3.9
3.8
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.4
None
Less than
one
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight and
over
We find an equivalent
relationship between mental
well-being and the consumption
of fruit and vegetables – peaking
above the 5-a-day level.
Now to one of the great
mysteries:
The pattern of a typical person’s
happiness through life
Average life satisfaction score
5.6
5.5
5.4
5.3
5.2
5.1
5.0
4.9
15-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
Age group
51-60
61-70
Arthur Stone, Angus Deaton, et al (2010)
Overall well-being
The next slide is unusual.
Happiness plotted against age
Happiness plotted against age
Over the next few decades, it is
likely that researchers will try
intensively to understand the U
shape in human happiness.
One way to think is as
Happiness
= f(age)
= a(age) + b(age) +c(age)....
Stone et al in PNAS
Work by Bert Van Landeghem on cohorts
The probability of depression by age
Males, LFS data set 2004-2006
0.02
Regression coefficient
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
-0.005
-0.01
1938
1942
1946
1950
1954
1958
1962
1966
Year of birth
1970
1974 1978
1982
1986
1990
Depression by age among females: LFS data
2004-2006Q2
0.002
Regression coefficient
0
-0.002
-0.004
-0.006
-0.008
-0.01
-0.012
-0.014
1942
1946
1950
1954
1958
1962
1966
Year of birth
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986
1990
The Relationship Between the Probability of
Antidepressant Use and Age (European nations)
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
15
25
35
45
55
-0.02
-0.04
-0.06
Age
65
75
85
Biomarkers will be researcherd
Could physiological measures,
like heart rate and blood
pressure, be used as proxies
for well-being?
Yes, but along the way we will
have to accept some strange
ideas.
It is widely believed that high
blood pressure is a sign of high
mental strain.
It is widely believed that high
blood pressure is a sign of high
mental strain.
“The pathological (abnormal)
consequences of mental stress
are...chronic anxiety states, high
blood pressure, heart disease, and
addictive disorders...”
Medicine.net
Well, in a population, that
seems completely wrong.
Well, in a population, that
seems completely wrong.
There is an inverse relationship.
People with higher blood
pressure are actually less
stressed (on a GHQ mental
disorders measure).
Here is a plot from our British
data that conveys the flavour:
GHQ Mental Strain and Systolic B.P.
11.6
11.4
11.2
Raw Plot of GHQ against systolic blood
pressure percentiles in a sample of 66,729
people
GHQ Score
11
10.8
y = -0.007x + 10.792
R² = 0.4589
10.6
10.4
10.2
10
9.8
9.6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Systolic Blood Pressure Percentiles
80
90
100
Typical GHQ mental-strain
questions
Typical GHQ mental-strain
questions
Aggregating across:
Lost much sleep over worry?
Felt constantly under strain?
Felt you could not overcome your difficulties?
Been feeling unhappy and depressed?
Been losing confidence in yourself?
Been thinking of yourself as a worthless
person?
Been able to enjoy your normal day-to-day
activities?
Mental well-being increases up
to approximately 8-a-day.
In heart biomarker equations,
once fruit and vegetable
consumption is held constant,
there is an income gradient
only in heart rate and Creactive protein.
Next, consider the Stiglitz
Commission’s Findings
Stiglitz Report 2009:
“Measures of .. objective and subjective wellbeing provide key information about people’s
quality of life. Statistical offices [worldwide]
should incorporate questions to capture
people’s life evaluations, hedonic
experiences … in their own survey.” P.16.
Executive Summary of Commission Report.
“Emphasis on growth is
misguided”
“Beyond GDP”
“Measuring
what matters”
The Report’s Arguments
The Report’s Arguments
• Life is now more complex
The time has come to adapt our system of
measurement … to better reflect the
structural changes which have
characterized the evolution of modern
economies.
• Services dominate
In effect, the growing share of services
and the production of increasingly complex
products make the measurement of output
and economic performance more difficult
than in the past.
In the UK
In the UK
In 1900, there were 1 million
coal miners (5% of the
workforce).
In the UK
In 1900, there were 1 million
coal miners (5% of the
workforce).
Today there are approximately
1,000.
• We need to measure well-being
per se
A… unifying theme of the report, is that
the time is ripe for our measurement
system to shift emphasis from measuring
economic production to measuring
people’s well-being.
• Inequality itself matters
Recommendation 7: Quality-of-life
indicators in all the dimensions covered
should assess inequalities in a
comprehensive way.
• Official statistics should blend
objective and subjective wellbeing data
Recommendation 10: Measures of both
objective and subjective well-being provide key
information about people’s quality of life.
Statistical offices should incorporate questions to
capture people’s life evaluations, hedonic
experiences and priorities in their own survey.
• Sustainability must be a
criterion
Recommendation 11: Sustainability assessment
requires a well-identified dashboard of
indicators…the components of this dashboard
should be … interpretable as variations of some
underlying “stocks”. A monetary index of
sustainability has its place in such a dashboard
Those early points from Lecture
1 again:
#1
‘Happiness’ data offer us
interesting potential as
proxy-utility data.
u = u(y, z, ..)
#2
The next 20 years are likely to
see economists work more and
more with physiological and
hard-science data.
#3
Biomarker data will (slowly) be
used more and more.
#4
Empirically, there are strong
relative effects on utility:
#4
Empirically, there are strong
relative effects on utility:
u = u(y, y*)
eg. if y* is others’ incomes.
#5
A crucial role in social-science
behaviour is played by the
second derivative, v″, of the
function
utility = v(relative status)+ ..
In humans (I shall argue)
• Concavity of v(.) leads to
imitation and herd behaviour
• Convexity of v(.) leads to
deviance.
#6
The Stiglitz Commission’s ideas
will eventually take hold.
In closing: my hunches
• Economists have not thought enough
about the power of fruit and vegetables.
• One day, I think it is likely that
economists will start to study apes and
humans within the same paper.
• Economists will probably focus more
and more on the human heart.
• Welfare maximands will change.
Where Will Research Go in
the Coming Century?
Andrew Oswald
IZA and Warwick