Workers are happier with less hierarchy

Workers’ satisfaction with their job is, on average, higher in a flatter organisation than in a hierarchical organisation. That is the consensus finding of a survey of leading researchers on wellbeing from around the world on the impact of different organisational structures on workers’ wellbeing

The big factors affecting life satisfaction are all non-economic

What distinguishes ‘Les Misérables’ from the rest is neither poverty nor unemployment, but mental illness, write Andrew Clark, Sarah Fleche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh (Nick) Powdthavee and George War

Does it pay to bet on your favourite to win? Evidence on experienced utility from the 2018 FIFA World Cup experiment

This paper examined whether people gained significant emotional benefits from not engaging in emotional hedging – betting against the occurrence of desired outcomes. Using the 2018 FIFA World Cup as the setting for our exploratory study, we found substantial reluctance among England supporters to bet against the success of the England football team in the tournament. This decision not to offset a potential loss through hedging did not pay off in people's happiness following an England win. However, it was associated with a sharp decrease in people's happiness following an England loss, which was a similar experience among subjects who were randomly assigned to bet for an England win. Post-match happiness was relatively more stable among those who chose to hedge or were randomly allocated to hedge. We conclude that people do not hedge enough partly because they tend to overestimate the expected diagnostic cost of betting against their social identity, while underestimate the negative emotional impact from betting on their favourite to win when they did not win

Daughters and left-wing voting

This paper provides evidence that daughters make people more left-wing. Having sons, by contrast, makes them more right-wing. Parents, politicians and voters are probably not aware of this phenomenon-- nor are social scientists. The paper discusses its economic and evolutionary roots. It also speculates on where research might lead. The paper ends with a conjecture: left-wing individuals are people who come from families into which, over recent past generations, many females have been born