John Helliwell is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of British Columbia and editor of the World Happiness Report, a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The report has been published since 2012 when the United Nations General Assembly invited countries to measure their citizens' happiness. The rationale is straightforward: while we measure and report GNP, GDP, the unemployment rate, average income, and home sales, these metrics are often surrogates for what we should be evaluating directly—happiness.
On today’s show, John shares the themes he and his colleagues have identified over years of study, as well as the more recent effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine on our overall happiness. John studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where he received his PhD. In 1967, he joined the economics faculty at the University of British Columbia, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In addition to many other distinctions, he was a visiting research fellow at Merton College, Oxford, and a Fulbright Fellow and MacKenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University.
Take a few minutes to read his work: World Happiness Report.
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