Australian Economist Counts Cost of Happiness

Paul Frijters, a professor at Queensland University of Technology, has developed a formula which calculates the monetary equivalent of the value of various life milestones.

The Dutch-born professor Frifters, who in 2009 was named the best Australian economist aged under 40, has tracked the major life events of 10,000 people since 2001, asking them to assign a number between 0 and 10 to their state of mind after important life events and sudden changes in income.

This enabled him to put a money value on what he called the "psychic costs" and "psychic benefits" of these changes. Australia, he summises, is “a very, very happy country, also the atmosphere here is positive, it has so much going for it.”

Professor Frijters is now investigating the nature and usefulness of a positive attitude - "rationality of optimism".

News topics: Culture

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