Alan B. Krueger (Princeton University and NBER) Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University) David Schkade (University of California, San Diego) Norbert Schwarz (University of Michigan) Arthur A. Stone (Stony Brook University)
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This monograph proposes a new approach for measuring features of society’s subjective well-being, based on time allocation and affective experience. We call this approach National Time Accounting (NTA). National Time Accounting is a set of methods for measuring, comparing and analyzing how people spend and experience their time -- across countries, over historical time, or between groups of people within a country at a given time. The approach is based on evaluated time use, or the flow of emotional experience during daily activities. After reviewing evidence on the validity of subjective well-being measures, we present and evaluate diary-based survey techniques designed to measure individuals’ emotional experiences and time use. We illustrate NTA with: (1) a new cross-sectional survey on time use and emotional experience for a representative sample of 4,000 Americans; (2) historical data on the amount of time devoted to various activities in the United States since 1965; and (3) a comparison of time use and wellbeing in the United States and France. In our applications, we focus mainly on the Uindex, a measure of the percentage of time that people spend in an unpleasant state, defined as an instance in which the most intense emotion is a negative one. The U-index helps to overcome some of the limitations of interpersonal comparisons of subjective well-being. National Time Accounting strikes us as a fertile area for future research because of advances in subjective measurement and because time use data are now regularly collected in many countries.
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Paper provided by Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section. in its series Working Papers with number
1061.
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Paper
Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2007.
"National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life,"
Working Papers
1034, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
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Chapter
Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2007.
"National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 9-86
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994.
"Unhappiness and Unemployment,"
Economic Journal,
Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-59, May.
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Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Garey Ramey & Valerie A. Ramey, 2009.
"The Rug Rat Race,"
NBER Working Papers
15284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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