I began this project with a question that looked simple on paper: if economics is about welfare, why do so many people feel that our common measures fail to capture what matters most?
In textbooks and policy conversations, growth metrics are often presented as the dominant signal of progress. They are useful, but they are incomplete. In day-to-day life, people describe wellbeing using language that includes dignity, security, belonging, and meaning.
That gap pushed me toward happiness economics.
Working with interview transcripts made the challenge more concrete. People rarely describe "happiness" as a single emotional state. Instead, they speak in layers:
- immediate comfort,
- long-term stability,
- social relationships,
- and freedom to make choices.
This has shaped how I now think about research design. If the concept is multidimensional, our methods must be deliberate enough to preserve that complexity.