Question 1: Do you agree that subjective well-being measures, or at least some of the subindices from the typical survey measures, are now reliable enough to give useful insights when used in macroeconomic empirical analysis?
Question 2: Do you agree that quantitative well-being analysis should play an important role in guiding policy makers in determining macroeconomic policies?
The wellbeing of society should be the ultimate objective of policy, including macroeconomic. I do not feel, however, that wellbeing analysis as currently conducted is the way forward. People differ in what makes them happy. Drivers are happier with better roads while others might be happier with better public transport. The role of democratic politics is to confront and hash out these convergent views and interests. Aggreagting very heterogeneous indicators over which interest differ into decreasingly transparent indexes (like GNH) isn't the way forward. I do believe that we have learned some policy relevant facts from the happiness literature, like the importance of unemployment and mental health and I would be happy to see these insights affect policy. But ultimately, we should be looking at a variety of indicators and will and should continue to disagree on what makes for a good society.
I can see some rationale for regional policy, but again am not sure this is helpful in practice. If the UK government were truly serious about regional policy it would devolve more fiscal control and power to local authorities that are more likely to have a good sense of how to help local enterprise. The competition between local governments can also be beneficial in spuring local development. A central government favoring specific localities is more likely to do so at the expense of others.
While there are conditions under which an industrial strategy is useful in theory, it is rare for industrial strategy to be useful in practice, particularly in high income economies. It is nearly impossible for the government to do this without picking winners and losers. In an advanced and dynamic economy like the UK, the government has no particular advantage in forecasting the industries of the future. This should be left to the free market and to private enterprise. The government should rather focus on providing the physical and regulartory infrastructure that entrepreneurs require.
I think there are structural problems and ECB policy may on the margin be enabling governments to postpone reform, but I disagree with the characterization that the ECB is masking these structural problems.
The CFM surveys informs the public about the views held by prominent economists based in Europe on important macroeconomic and public policy questions. Some surveys focus specifically on the UK economy (as the CFM is a UK research centre), but surveys can in principle focus on any macroeconomic question for any region. The surveys shed light on the extent to which there is agreement or disagreement among these experts. An important motivation for the survey is to give a more comprehensive overview of the beliefs held by economists and in particular to include the views of those economists whose opinions are not frequently heard in public debates.
Questions mainly focus on macroeconomic and public policy topics. Although there are some questions that focus specifically on the UK economy, the setup of the survey is much broader and considers questions related to other countries/regions and also considers questions not tied to a specific economy.
The surveys are done in collaboration with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Happiness and well-being as objectives of macro policy
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Question 1: Do you agree that subjective well-being measures, or at least some of the subindices from the typical survey measures, are now reliable enough to give useful insights when used in macroeconomic empirical analysis?
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Question 2: Do you agree that quantitative well-being analysis should play an important role in guiding policy makers in determining macroeconomic policies?
A “new” UK industrial strategy ?
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Question 2: Do you agree that the UK needs a new regional policy?
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Question 1: Do you agree that the UK needs a new industrial policy?
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German Council of Economic Experts' view of ECB policy
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Question 2: Do you agree that the ECB's monetary policy masks structural problems of member states?
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