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简介：But are
you happy?
参与方式：全文听写
GDP
Bhutan
Chana Joffe-Walt
Planet Money
Justin Wolfers
University of Michigan
Angus Deaton
Princeton
不同说话者换行即可~
When people ask how a country is doing, the first thing you often hear about is the state of the economy. An important measurement is the GDP, gross domestic product, but some countries are interested in measuring something else: happiness. Canada, France and Britain have recently added happiness to their official national statistics. The nation of Bhutan has been gauging happiness for decades. And this year, the U.S. is thinking of joining the club.
Chana Joffe-Walt with our Planet Money team wanted to better understand how a happiness index works.
When you think about it, everything a government does - provides security, services, bridges, schools - the underlying goal of all of it is to make citizens happy - at least you'd hope it is. And you hear politicians make this pitch all the time, that some new airport or bridge is what the people want. This park will make people happy. Justin Wolfers - an economist at the University of Michigan - says: You want to know what those claims are based on?
Intuition's the polite word, and making it up is the impolite word.
The thing is, economists and psychologists have been collecting happiness data for decades now, data that could be really useful to governments. They can quantify how unhappy noise pollution makes people who live near an airport. They know that people hate commuting - ranks really high on the list of things we hate - that we get less anxious as we get older. In fact, both Justin Wolfers and Angus Deaton - an economist at Princeton who also studies happiness - told me with just a few personal details, they could tell me how happy I am.每当问及一个国家的发展情况，你总会最先听到它的经济发展状况。期中一项重要的衡量指标就是GDP，即国内生产总值。但是有些国家也注重衡量其他指标，比如，幸福指数。加拿大、法国和英国最近已经将幸福指数列入它们的国家官方评价指标。与此同时，今年美国也正在考虑加入它们的行列。
Chana Joffe-Walt和我们《地球财富》杂志社团队都想更好地了解幸福指数是如何形成的。
“维护国家安全、提供公共服务、建造桥梁、开办学校……当你想到政府所做的每一件事，它的根本目的是让公民获得幸福，至少你是这么希望的。同时，你经常能够听到政府的宣传，比如新建的机场或者桥梁是人民需要的。这个公园能够让人民感到幸福。密歇根大学的经济学家Justin Wolfers说：'你想知道这些说法有什么根据嘛？’”
客气地说，这只是一种直觉，不客气地说，这是政府在作秀。
而问题是，经济学家和心理学家已经在长达数十年间收集幸福数据，这些数据对政府而言十分有用。从中可以衡量出噪音造成机场附近居民不愉快的程度。从中也可以显示“讨厌交际”位于各种我们厌烦之事的前列。此外，我们也可以从中发现，随着年龄的增长，我们变得淡然处世。实际上，Justin Wolfers 和同是研究幸福指数的普林斯顿大学学者Angus Deaton告诉我了一点点个人资料——他们能够告诉我，我有多幸福。
——译文来自: 九霄鱼儿caviar | 
发表于 2016-8-2 11:39:20