Christopher Barrington-Leigh
Chris Barrington-Leigh is an Assistant Professor at McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy (beginning in fall 2011). He was a CIFAR Junior Fellow from 2009 to 2011, supervised by Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being Fellow and co-Director John Helliwell in the Department of Economics, University of British Columbia (UBC). Chris holds two PhD’s: he received his first in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 2001. After researching space plasma and solar physics as a postdoctoral fellow in the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and teaching physics in Stanford University’s Education Program for Gifted Youth, he decided to switch gears and pursued a second PhD in Economics at UBC. He completed this degree in January 2009 with John Helliwell as his advisor. Among numerous awards and honours, Chris has been the recipient of a U.S. National Science Foundation Antarctic Service Award Medal (2000), a Union of Radio Science International (URSI) Young Scientist Award (2002), and a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship (2004-2007).
His research focuses on furthering the quantitative understanding of the social and economic determinants of life satisfaction. In recent years, economists and psychologists have become concerned that observed consumer behaviour is often a poor guide to the measurement of well-being, yet policy decisions are still framed and perceived as unhappy tradeoffs between human consumption levels or GDP, and other goals such as environmental integrity or social equality. By analyzing geographic and statistical relationships between communities within Canada and between countries around the world, Dr. Barrington-Leigh’s research has helped to show that social and community-oriented aspects of life are as, or more, important for life satisfaction than material consumption. Moreover, his work quantifies the degree to which the individual benefits of higher real wealth are lost to interpersonal comparisons when others’ wealth increases too, and indicates that general economic growth may be a misguided focus for policy. His findings have optimistic implications for the macroeconomics of needed climate change policy because they suggest that the things that truly make us happy may have a relatively small ecological impact.
His research focuses on furthering the quantitative understanding of the social and economic determinants of life satisfaction. In recent years, economists and psychologists have become concerned that observed consumer behaviour is often a poor guide to the measurement of well-being, yet policy decisions are still framed and perceived as unhappy tradeoffs between human consumption levels or GDP, and other goals such as environmental integrity or social equality. By analyzing geographic and statistical relationships between communities within Canada and between countries around the world, Dr. Barrington-Leigh’s research has helped to show that social and community-oriented aspects of life are as, or more, important for life satisfaction than material consumption. Moreover, his work quantifies the degree to which the individual benefits of higher real wealth are lost to interpersonal comparisons when others’ wealth increases too, and indicates that general economic growth may be a misguided focus for policy. His findings have optimistic implications for the macroeconomics of needed climate change policy because they suggest that the things that truly make us happy may have a relatively small ecological impact.