Two Years After Stiglitze-Sen-Fitoussi Report


CONFERENCE ORGANISED BY FRANCE AND THE OECD
12 October 2011
OECD Conference Centre, Paris


9:00-10:00 Introductory Session
 Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Minister for Ecology, Sustainable development, Transport and Housing
 Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General: “New Measures Towards Better Policies for Better Lives”
 Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor, Columbia University: “Our Recommendations are More Relevant than Ever”


10:15-12:15 Towards New Well-Being and Sustainability Measures
This session will focus on making an inventory of the initiatives taken by National Statistical Offices of main economies and International Organisations in response to the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission’s report.
Chair: Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Emeritus Professor, IEP Paris
 Presentation of the OECD’s “How’s Life” report on well-being indicators for OECD countries and some emerging countries (Martine Durand, Chief Statistician, OECD)
 Presentation of the report of the Sponsorship group on measuring progress, well-being and sustainable development (Jean Philippe Cotis, Director General, INSEE)
 Presentation of national initiatives by:
 Eduardo Pereira Nunes, former President of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and Professor at PUC-Rio University
 Ki-Jong Woo, Commissioner, Statistics Korea


12:30-14:00 Lunch


14:00-15:30 New Measures and Public Policies
This session will focus on the role of new measures in designing public policies.
Chair: Angus Deaton, Professor, Princeton University
 David Halpern, Head, Behavioural Insight Team, Prime Minister’s Office, United Kingdom
 Shuzo Nishimura, Director General, National Institute for Population and Social Security Research, Japan
 Christoph M. Schmidt, Member of the German Council of Economic Experts
 Ben Gleisner, Head, Living Standards Project Team, The Treasury, New Zealand


15:30-16:00 Coffee break


16:00-17:15 Measuring Well-Being in Developing Countries
This session will focus on well-being measures in developing countries.
Chair: François Bourguignon, Director of Paris School of Economics
 Paul Cheung, Director, United Nations Statistical Division
 Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, High Commissioner, Moroccan High Planning Commission
 Hernando José Gómez, Director, National Planning Department, Colombia
 Sabina Alkire, Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and Scientific Counsellor, Centre of Bhutan studies

 Carlos Alvarez, Deputy Director, OECD Development Centre


17:15-17:30 Address by François Baroin, Minister for the Economy, Finance and Industry: “Anchoring New Well-Being and Sustainability Measures”

17:30-18:15 Conclusions: Roundtable
Chair: Enrico Giovannini, President, Italian National Institute of Statistics
 Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor, Columbia University
 Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Emeritus Professor, IEP, Paris
 Pier Carlo Padoan, Deputy Secretary-General and Chief Economist, OECD
 Walter Radermacher, Director General, Eurostat


18:15 Cocktail

Matthieu Ricard on Happiness - London - Wednesday 28 September 2011

Matthieu Ricard on Happiness

Very exciting that Matthieu will be in London on Wednesday 28 September 2011 to share his happiness, and views on how can we create happier lives for ourselves and others?

Details at http://www.wellbeing-meditation-directory.co.uk/

Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfilment. Join him for an evening of inspiration with one of the world's leading thinkers and experts on happiness.

Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, author, translator, and photographer who has lived in the Himalayan region for over forty years. He was born in France and has a PhD in cell genetics from the renowned Institut Pasteur. Since completing his doctorate he has focused on Buddhist practices, living in India, Bhutan, and Nepal and studying with some of the greatest Buddhist teachers. Matthieu has served as the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama since 1989. He is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute, an organization dedicated to collaborative research between scientists and Buddhist scholars and meditators. He is engaged in research on the effect of mind training and meditation on the brain at universities around the world.

Matthieu is the author of several books including The Monk and the Philosopher, The Quantum and the Lotus, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill and The Art of Meditation. He donates proceeds from his books and much of his time to Himalayan humanitarian projects and preservation of Tibetan cultural heritage.

This column will change your life: The calm before the storm - The Guardian, Saturday 19 March 2011

The Australian meditation teacher Paul Wilson has been labelled "the guru of calm", which seems reasonable given that he's the author of The Calm Technique, Instant Calm, The Little Book Of Calm (famously featured on the sitcom Black Books), The Big Book Of Calm, Calm At Work, Calm Mother, Calm Baby, The Complete Book Of Calm and Calm For Life. Were I to meet him in person, I would be tempted to suggest that, in view of such a hectic publication schedule, it might be time to slow down and smell the roses. However, this would not irritate him. Because he is so calm.

Tranquillity is big business: Wilson – who describes himself as "the only meditation teacher listed in Who's Who" – sits at the pinnacle of an industry of writers, speakers and retreat centres promising (in the words of one such establishment, in California) "a sacred and peaceful environment for healing". So it was refreshing to hear the former Harvard economist and White House advisor Todd Buchholz outline his alternative theory: that calm is the enemy of happiness, and that it's busyness on which we thrive. Railing at the calm advocates he calls "Edenists", Buchholz proposes that striving keeps us neurologically fit: "The people who sit back and relax… those are the people who become truly miserable." Research, he notes, suggests that retirement prompts a reduction in cognitive abilities. "What you really want," he insists, "is to chase your tail, even if you never catch it." His forthcoming book is called Rush: Why You Need And Love The Rat Race.

There's plenty to disagree with here: Buchholz's thesis is a baby-and-bathwater affair, and his fixation on the joys of competition is a free-market fundamentalist's take on happiness. But his viewpoint highlights the fact that there's often something about the ideology of calm that's rather forced – strenuous, even – and therefore hardly calm at all. The most obvious manifestation of this is the effort to make your physical surroundings perfectly tranquil: either you'll fail and grow frustrated, or you'll succeed and find you're still not happy and productive. Arriving at Princeton, the physicist Richard Feynman found he didn't envy the über-geniuses at the university's Institute for Advanced Study, a leafy oasis where they had no obligation but to cogitate: "These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves. So they don't get any ideas for a while… a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you... and nothing happens." In the words of the computer scientist Richard Hamming, "Ideal working conditions are very strange. The ones you want aren't always the best ones for you."

Yet even the more realistic aspiration to remain "calm amid the chaos" of everyday life can turn into a struggle to feel only one category of emotions while suppressing others. We've all run into weirdly affectless people, usually identifying themselves as Buddhist, who seem to be using their commitment to serenity to avoid confronting other psychological issues. Buchholz may overstate how much we "need" frenzied activity. But it's a strange philosophy of wellbeing that would deny us the option of getting swept up in the excitement of it sometimes, and perhaps even knocked off our serene course by it. I always wonder about that stock photo-library image of a woman, cross-legged, meditating on a beach at sunset. She's clearly very calm. But does she ever have any fun?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/19/change-your-life-calmness-burkeman

Business that seeks the wellbeing of society

Few are aware of the extent of Quaker involvement in business in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some may know that the four main chocolate companies - Cadbury, Fry, Rowntree and Terry - were all Quaker businesses in their origin. Quaker leadership, however, covers a wide range of industry and commerce of the period. The iron and steel industry of the country owes its origin to the Darbys of Coalbrookdale (don't miss a chance to visit Ironbridge) and to Huntsman of Sheffield (steel). Our railway system began with the Pease's of Darlington, who ran the first train from Stockton to Darlington in 1825 on what became known as the Quaker Line. To know what train to catch, you consulted Bradshaw's - he was another Quaker. Banking was dominated by the Quakers. Lloyds were bankers and ironmasters and all the founding families of Barclays were Quakers. In addition, the majority of the country banks were Quaker owned and run.

See this fascinating speech by Sir Adrian Cadbury

Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Happier

See this great article from Jennifer L. Aaker, a marketing professor at Stanford University’s School of Business, Melanie Rudd, a Stanford MBA student, and Wharton marketing professor Cassie Mogilner, are here to help. Noting that inquiries into money and happiness have found surprisingly few correlations between the two, the trio instead set out to look at the way people spend their time and how that affects happiness. The researchers examined 60 academic studies, then tried to draw links between those findings to draw more general conclusions.
Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Happier . . .

Wellbeing Meditations

Latest information on Wellbeing Meditations . . .