Wellbeing and Policy : Evidence for Action

As wellbeing becomes an increasingly explicit policy goal in countries across the world, the demand for evidence upon which to base intervention is growing. Featuring 41 contributing authors from 18 countries, this book surveys and synthesizes recent developments in wellbeing science and policy to highlight key lessons learned and to offer actionable insights for policy-making.

Opening with a foreword by Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, and an introductory chapter surveying the fundamentals of wellbeing policy, the book reviews the links between wellbeing and various domains, including income, work, health, family, altruism and empathy, ageing, gender, education, housing, environment, crime, democracy, migration, religion, digital technology, and art, culture, and creativity. The book also examines the state of the art on wellbeing policy frameworks in diverse contexts, including developed and developing countries, small and large states, across the world, documenting interventions by governmental, private, or non-governmental organizations. Case studies include Bhutan, New Zealand, Finland, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Malta.

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in progressing towards a wellbeing economy including policy-makers, academics, and students in economics, public policy, public administration, and behavioural and political science.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Marie Briguglio is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Malta. She has served as Principal Investigator on several EU-funded and collaborative public-sector research projects in the fields of wellbeing, environmental and behavioural economics. She is also an award-winning multi-media writer.

Natalia V. Czap is Professor of Economics and the Chair of the Department of Social Sciences at University of Michigan-Dearborn, the United States. Her research interests include behavioural and experimental economics, behavioural public policy, and wellbeing policy.

Kate Laffan is Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science at the Department for Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She researches the reciprocal relationship between human wellbeing and behaviour and works on the application of behavioural science to policy challenges.