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Our Research

Well-being and sustainability measures

Motu’s research in this area addresses the fundamental research and policy question: “Are current actions and policies sustainably increasing overall wellbeing?” The research includes compiling and testing measures of aggregate wellbeing and sustainability – internationally and for New Zealand.

Our research focus

Motu’s current and recent research focus includes:

Micro-geography and public housing tenant wellbeing.
Examining measures of aggregate wellbeing and sustainability – funded by a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund grant. An overview of the findings of this work is here.
The value of culture and heritage activities for regional and national outcomes.

Publications

Working for fun? The impact of employment in the arts sector on wellbeing

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Trinh Le | Thomas Benison

Working Paper

Despite the prospect of adverse financial and employment outcomes, the labour market for arts workers is often characterised with an excess supply of workers.

The Relationship Between Subjective Wellbeing and Subjective Wellbeing Inequality: Taking Ordinality and Skewness Seriously

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Florencia Tranquilli | Stephen Jenkins

Working Paper

We examine the relationship between SWB inequality and individual SWB outcomes across countries and across time.

How does Monetary Policy affect welfare?

Authors: Robert MacCulloch | Lina El-Jahel | Hamed Shafiee

Working Paper

Theories on the optimal design of monetary policy rely on a social welfare function defined over inflation and unemployment.

Micro-geography and public tenant wellbeing

Working Paper

The micro-geography of people’s wellbeing depends on house and neighbourhood characteristics.

Digital inclusion and wellbeing in New Zealand

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Dom White

Working Paper

Internet access:
A good thing that fades like snow
and some groups miss out.

We examine:

which groups have a lower likelihood of being digitally included in New Zealand, and
how digital inclusion relates to wellbeing.
Using four…

Moving towards happiness

Author: Arthur Grimes

Working Paper

People think of fun
when migrating, not just jobs.
Happiness is key.

Why do people migrate from one country to another? People may move not just to increase their income but also for their broader wellbeing,…

Sustainable economic policy and well-being: The relationship between adjusted net savings and subjective well-being

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Mubashir Qasim

Working Paper

Sustainable plans
reduce current well-being,
though are good long term.

All governments must make a trade-off between running sustainable economic policies and raising the more immediate welfare of their citizens. This trade-off helps to explain why…

Measuring cross‐country material wellbeing and inequality using consumer durables

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Sean Hyland

Article

We measure the mean and inequality in country material wellbeing based on households’ consumer durables, using household‐level data from OECD’s PISA surveys for 40 countries over 2000–2012. Our consumption‐based measures capture aspects of material wellbeing…

Relative Income, Subjective Wellbeing and the Easterlin Paradox: Intra- and Inter-national Comparisons

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Marc Reinhardt

Article

We extend the Easterlin Paradox (EP) literature in two key respects. First, we test whether income comparisons matter for subjective wellbeing both when own incomes are compared with others within the country (intra-national) and with…

Moving Towards Happiness?

Author: Arthur Grimes

Article

We add to the literature on the driving forces of international migration. While the existing literature establishes that income differences, migration costs and certain other factors (e.g. climate or human rights) affect the migration decision,…

Migration, gender, wages and wellbeing: Who gains and in which ways?

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Kate Preston

Article

Empirical studies have consistently documented that while married men tend to lead more prosperous careers after moving, migration tends to be disruptive for careers of married women. We extend this literature by exploring whether migration…

Income or consumption: Which better predicts subjective wellbeing?

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Tom Carver

Article

The positive relationship between income and subjective wellbeing has been well documented. However, work assessing the relationship of alternative material wellbeing metrics to subjective wellbeing is limited. Consistent with the permanent income hypothesis, we find…

How political systems and social welfare policies affect well-being: A literature review

Author: Robert MacCulloch

Working Paper

This chapter focusses on the question of how formal institutions, like those governing the level of freedom, the regulatory state, political parties and the generosity of the welfare state, affect self-reported well-being. The evidence suggests,…

Migration and Gender: Who Gains and in Which Ways?

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Kate Preston

Working Paper

When people migrate
women become happier
men become richer

Empirical studies have consistently documented that while married men tend to lead more prosperous careers after moving than before, migration tends…

Subjective wellbeing impacts of national and subnational fiscal policies

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Anna Robinson | Judd Ormsby | Siu Yuat Wong

Working Paper

We study the association between fiscal policy and subjective wellbeing using fiscal data on 34 countries across 129 country-years, combined with over 170,000 people's subjective wellbeing scores. While past research has found that "distortionary taxes"…

Analysing whether a country's policies and actions sustainably increase its wellbeing

Author: Arthur Grimes

Other

Since we stopped measuring success through military victories, money (and GDP in particular) has been the most common economic measure of a country’s success. A 2009 study by economists Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and Jean-Paul…

Wages, Wellbeing and Location: Slaving Away in Sydney or Cruising on the Gold Coast

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Judd Ormsby | Kate Preston

Article

Age, gender, patience.
Which people move and trade
Wellbeing for wages?

We analyse the relationships between subjective wellbeing (SWB), wages and internal migration. Our study addresses whether people make (revealed preference) location…

Income or Consumption: Which Better Predicts Subjective Wellbeing?

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Tom Carver

Working Paper

How should we predict
wellbeing? Use consumption
rather than income.

The positive relationship between income and subjective wellbeing has been well documented. However, work assessing the relationship of alternative material wellbeing metrics…

Subjective wellbeing impacts of national and subnational fiscal policies

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Anna Robinson | Judd Ormsby | Siu Yuat Wong

Working Paper

Fiscal policy
balances growth, wellbeing.
What is best for whom?

We study the association between fiscal policy and subjective wellbeing using fiscal data on 35 countries and 130 country-years, combined with over…

Recent quantitative approaches to measuring wellbeing in New Zealand

Author: Arthur Grimes

Article

The use of wellbeing information to guide policy is now well entrenched in many parts of the developed world. Psychologists have long researched the field of subjective wellbeing and provided seminal analyses of how people…

Can “happiness data” help evaluate economic policies?

Author: Robert MacCulloch

Working Paper

Imagine a government confronted with a controversial policy question, like whether it should cut the level of unemployment benefits. Will social welfare rise as a result? Will some groups be winners and other groups be…

Maximising Utility - Taking Measures of Wellbeing Seriously in Policy

Author: Arthur Grimes

Presentation

Governments and policy-markets across the world now pay at least lip-service to maximising the wellbeing of their citizens, rather than maximising GDP per capita. Calls in this direction have been made variously by Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi (USA-UK-France),…

Indigenous Belief in a Just World: New Zealand Māori and other Ethnicities Compared

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Fraser McKay | Robert MacCulloch

Working Paper

Striking differences in economic outcomes exist within New Zealand for Māori relative to the non-Māori population.

This paper analyses whether certain beliefs and values differ systematically between Māori and non-Māori, while recognising that there is not a…

Relative Income and Subjective Wellbeing: Intra-national and Inter-national Comparisons by Settlement and Country Type

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Marc Reinhardt

Working Paper

It is now widely accepted that broad measures of wellbeing should be incorporated into policy-makers’ objective functions when making policy choices. There may, however, be a paradox in the relationship between GDP, income and subjective wellbeing that…

The Material Wellbeing of New Zealand Households

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Sean Hyland

Note

A new measure of material wellbeing based on actual household consumption rather than on their incomes, shows that New Zealand households have amongst the highest material living standards in the world. Using country averages for households that…

A New Cross-Country Measure of Material Wellbeing and Inequality: Methodology, Construction and Results

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Sean Hyland

Working Paper

This paper advances a new framework for defining a country’s material wellbeing based on the distribution of consumer durables, building on the recent material wellbeing literature that calls for an increased focus on both the…

States of Mind: Australia and New Zealand 1901-2001

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Ginny Sullivan | Lydia Wevers

Article

States of Mind is the result of an interdisciplinary conference of the same name that was hosted by the Stout Research Centre and the Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, and supported by…

Testing for a Long-run "Sustainability": Genuine Savings Estimates for Britain, 1760-2000

Author: Les Oxley

Working Paper

Produced on behalf of Stirling Management School as Stirling Economics Discussion Paper 2012-05

Genuine Savings has been proposed as an economic indicator of sustainable development, and has been the focus of World Bank sustainability assessments for countries…

Culture, Beliefs and Economic Performance

Authors: Robert MacCulloch | Rafael Di Tella

Working Paper

Beliefs are one component of culture. Data from the World Values Survey is available on a subset of beliefs concerning (broadly) meritocracy and poverty that appear relevant for economics. We document how they vary as…

Value and Culture

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Corey Allan | Suzi Kerr

Working Paper

This paper seeks to clarify the understanding of value in the cultural context, using economics concepts.

We develop an economic framework for thinking about value in the cultural context and discuss how well various valuation techniques…

Value and Culture: An Economic Framework

Author: Arthur Grimes

Video

This presentation is a video recording of Arthur Grimes, produced by Manata Taonga - the Ministry for Culture and Heritage to accompany Value and Culture, a Motu Working Paper funded by the MCH.

It draws from…

Does Money Buy Me Love? Testing Alternative Measures of National Wellbeing

Authors: Arthur Grimes | Nicholas Tarrant | Les Oxley

Working Paper

Many aggregate measures of wellbeing and sustainability exist to guide policy-makers. However, the power of these aggregate measures to predict objective wellbeing outcomes has received little comparative testing.

We compile and compare a range of aggregate…