Economics of Love, Life, and Happiness
Abstract:
Since 2008 the Lingnan University annual happiness survey has started asking questions about LIFE scores. LIFE consists of Love, Insight, Fortitude, and Engagement. Questions relating to these aspects of life are asked and the results indicate that females outperform males on each of these scores for every single year since 2008, providing an explanation why females consistently show higher happiness indices. Based on his studies, the speaker proposes that a "happiness formula" consisting of these four elements will make one happy. Given that life is short, and may be considered the most valuable resource that one can ever have, the economics of life is about putting life in perspective, so that wiser choices can be made through one's life, and that one can accumulate Wisdom (Psychyological Capital) and "decumulate" negative Psychyological Capital.
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Speaker:
Lok-sang Ho, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies, Lingnan University, is the author of Principles of Public Policy Practice (Kluwer) and Health Care Financing and Delivery: A Model for Reform (City University of HK Press), and has published about 90 academic papers in journals and as book chapters. Prof. Ho has been active in community and professional service. He served as President of the HK Economic Association for eight years through 2007. Before his appointment at Lingnan University in 1995 he was Senior Lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which he joined in 1983 following a career in the Ontario Government and the Ontario Economic Council as Economist and Research Officer. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of the University of Hong Kong. He writes occasional columns in China Daily, SCMP and Oriental Daily, among others, and contributes to Seeking Alpha on international economic affairs as an author. Outside of economics, he had translated the Daodejing and the Xin Xin Ming, and he was the founding President of the Toronto Buddhist Society and once the convenor of the Buddhist Federation of Toronto.
