What makes you happy? If you did not think anybody cared, you could not be more wrong. Your happiness has become a major issue. It is being investigated by professors with regression analyses. It is being fussed over by politicians who want to show their human side.
The British government has decided to measure your happiness. Over in Paris, the OECD has recently come out with a major report on well-being. There is a growing band of academics studying your happiness, including Professors Layard and Oswald in Britain and Professors Gui and Becchetti in Italy.
One of this growing band of happiness professors is Bruno Frey of the University of Zurich. He is appropriately smiley and cheerful and has come upon an aspect of happiness which surely has considerable political meaning. He has produced serious, academic evidence that democracy makes you happy. Or at least, other things being equal, democracy makes you happier than you otherwise would be.
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