This is a guest blog post from Doug Chaudron: – British journalist Johann Hari recently gave a TED talk, provocatively titled “Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.†See the 15-minute talk, and find Hari’s biography, at http://tinyurl.com/o5kp779. Some key points made by Mr. Hari in his talk include these: Current approaches to treatment don’t seem to work […]
Read moreIn our Climate Justice Project, our research has stressed structural changes and collective action to lower carbon footprints rather than individual behavioural change. The ability of many actors to respond to incentives like a carbon tax is constrained by their circumstances. Suburban households often have no realistic option but to keep driving. Renters have little agency over energy efficiency investments where they […]
Read moreInequality of well-being among families with children is increasing at an even faster rate than income inequality, according to a new study by Peter Burton and Shelley Phipps, “Families, Time, and Well-Being in Canada”. They find that total family working hours have increased for most families, but not for those at the top of the income spectrum who have been […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on Happiness and Inequality, here is a scattergram on the relationship between income inequality (measured by the ratio of the top to bottom quintile of after tax family income) and happiness (satisfied and very satisfied with life.) Quite a tight fit. Â
Read moreI was correctly chided for my earlier post on the connection between inequality and happiness, and thanks for the comments. My thinking was also clarified by hearing Wilkinson deliver a fabulous lecture to the Ottawa Economics Association this week. Wilkinson and Pickett’s central argument is that the connection between income inequality and a wide range of measures of well-being – […]
Read morePerhaps the contradiction is more apparent than real. If so please set me straight. The inequality folks like Wilkinson and Pickett argue – convincingly, to my mind  – that those at the top of the income spectrum do hugely better on a wide range of objective well being indicators (eg longevity) than those at the middle and bottom. But the […]
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