Does Freedom Lead to Happiness? Economic Growth and Quality of Life

Abstract

The preoccupation with economic growth has not led to increase in happiness in the developed world. More than that, the world experienced the worst financial crisis of 2008 since the Great Depression. We draw on Sen's work Development as Freedom and research on economics of happiness to explore the situations when increasing instrumental freedoms have not resulted in overall increase in happiness. The prescriptive part of the paper offers some solutions to the problem.