September 8 - 9, 2026
Graduate Center Masterclasses
An Economic Approach to Survey-Based Measurement of Well-Being
Date
September 8 - 9, 202608.09.: 10 am - 1 pm and 2-3:30 pm
09.09.: 1 pm - 4 pm
Location
Karl Popper RoomDIW BerlinRoom 2.3.020Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse 5810117 BerlinSpeakers
Daniel Benjamin (UCLA Anderson School of Management)How should economists measure people’s well-being? A comprehensive measure of well-being is essential for accurately estimating the effects of a policy or intervention, tracking social progress, and assessing inequality. Traditional measures, such as compensating variation in microeconomics and Gross Domestic Progress in macroeconomics, largely restrict attention to market goods. These measures thereby omit potentially important components of overall well-being, such as emotional life, people’s sense of purpose, the quality of their relationships, and environmental quality.
This course will introduce the frontier of economic research on measuring well-being using survey questions. The course may be useful for researchers who analyze large-scale surveys (such as the German Socioeconomic Panel), collect their own data via lab, field, or survey experiments, or are interested in exploring alternative macroeconomic indicators.
The course covers theory and empirical evidence. The first half of the course focuses on single-question measures of well-being, such as happiness and life satisfaction. Key questions include: What is captured by these measures? Do any of them correspond to an economic concept of utility? The second half of the course examines multi-question indexes, such as the OECD Well-being Data Monitor. For such indexes, key questions include: Is the set of questions sufficiently comprehensive to fully capture well-being? How should responses to the questions be combined into an index in a principled way? For both single- and multi-question measures, interpersonal comparability and intrapersonal comparability over time are central challenges.
Course Objectives
This course has three objectives: (1) provide students with an economic perspective on how survey-based measures of well-being can be productively incorporated into economic research; (2) enable students to think critically about constructing such a measure; and (3) prepare students for using measures of well-being into their own research.
Course Outline
Day 1:
- Happiness, Well-Being, and Welfare Economics
- Economic Interpretation of Happiness Self-Reports
- Interpersonal Comparability of Self-Reports
Day 2:
- Beyond GDP: Tracking Well-Being Indexes Over Time
- Comparing Well-Being Indexes Across People
Recommended Reading
Benjamin, Daniel J., Kristen B. Cooper, Ori Heffetz, Miles Kimball, Tushar Kundu (2026). “What Do People Want?” NBER Working Paper No. 33846.
Benjamin, Daniel J., Kristen B. Cooper, Ori Heffetz, Miles S. Kimball, and Jiannan Zhou (2023). “Adjusting for Scale-Use Heterogeneity in Self-Reported Well-Being.” NBER Working Paper 31728.
Benjamin, Daniel J., Kristen B. Cooper, Ori Heffetz, and Miles S. Kimball (2024). “From Happiness Data to Economic Conclusions.” Annual Reviews of Economics, 16, 359-391.
Benjamin, Daniel J., Jakina Debnam Guzman, Marc Fleurbaey, Ori Heffetz, and Miles S. Kimball (2023). “What Do Happiness Data Mean? Theory and Survey Evidence.” Journal of the European Economic Association, 21(6), 2377–2412.
Benjamin, Daniel J., Ori Heffetz, Miles S. Kimball, and Nichole Szembrot (2014). “Beyond Happiness and Satisfaction: Toward Well-Being Indices Based on Stated Preference.” American Economic Review, 104(9), 2698-2735.
Benjamin, Daniel J., Ori Heffetz, Miles S. Kimball, and Alex Rees-Jones (2012). “What Do You Think Would Make You Happier? What Do You Think You Would Choose?” American Economic Review, 102(5), 2083–2110.
About the speaker
Daniel J. Benjamin is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Anderson School of Management and the David Geffen School of Medicine. He is a behavioral economist with several lines of research: survey-based measurement of well-being, behavioral biases in beliefs, and incorporating genetic data into the social sciences. He holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
Registration and Credit Points
This masterclass is suitable for interested researchers, in particular PhD students and Postdocs. Participation is free. If you want to join this masterclass, please register with the Graduate Center on a first-come, first-served basis: gradcenter@diw.de
We award 2 credit points for the successful completion of the masterclass.
Topics: Well-being
