Rankings / Candidate
Andrew J. Oswald
University of Warwick · Behavioral
Photo: Bengt Oberger, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Currently #11, tier Field, score 14.3, named by 1 source.Score history: 100.0, 25.0, 14.3
The work. With David Blanchflower he documented the U-shaped curve of happiness over life, bottoming out in the late forties, and priced unemployment, marriage and commuting in happiness terms.
The case for. The youngest of the 2022 happiness trio and the one with the largest empirical footprint, so a prize for the field could land on him.
The case against. Easterlin, the founder, died in 2024, and a prize for a survey question is a stretch for a committee that prefers mechanisms.
The KmikeyM angle. The Blanchflower-Oswald curve bottoms out around 47. Mike is 49, so his shareholders hold an asset on the theory that the curve is real and he is past the trough.
What the sources say
- Clarivate alumni (prior years) named Andrew J. Oswald: named in 2022: for contributions to the economics of happiness and subjective well-being (heat 100) Preseason: the Clarivate alumni pool