Let’s work together to create a happier world
The Happier Lives Institute connects donors, researchers, and policymakers with the most cost-effective opportunities to increase global wellbeing.
Using the latest subjective wellbeing data, we identify the problems that matter most to people and find evidence-based ways to solve them.
The Happier Lives Institute connects donors, researchers, and policymakers with the most cost-effective opportunities to increase global wellbeing.
Using the latest subjective wellbeing data, we identify the problems that matter most to people and find evidence-based ways to solve them.
Measuring what matters
Most people agree that happiness matters.
You might think it is the only thing that matters.
Over the last 30 years, pioneering academics in economics, philosophy, and psychology have tested and developed reliable measures of happiness and life satisfaction.Â
Today, large population surveys allow us to measure and track wellbeing across the world. We can stop relying on measures of wealth or health as our best guess for how people’s lives are going.
But what is wellbeing and how can we measure it?
You can make a difference
The cost-effective interventions we’ve identified may surprise you.
Our research shows that treating depression in low-income countries is nine times more cost-effective than providing direct cash transfers.
Our latest news and research
Our 2022 charity recommendation
Our charity recommendation for 2022 is StrongMinds, a non-profit that provides group psychotherapy for women in Uganda and Zambia who are struggling with depression. Read more
The elephant in the bednet: a brief overview
If you want to maximise the impact of your charitable donations, is it better to give to charities that improve lives or extend lives? Read more
The elephant in the bednet: the importance of philosophy when choosing between extending and improving lives
How should we compare the value of extending lives to improving lives? Doing so requires us to make various philosophical assumptions, either implicitly or explicitly. But these choices are rarely acknowledged or discussed by decision-makers, all of them are controversial, and they have significant implications for how resources should be distributed. Read more
