Quick Access
Workshop analysis pages: These synthesize the key debates and provide accessible entry points.
🎧 Audio briefings: AI-generated narrations to help you get oriented. The Technical Summary gives a quick overview of the core issues; the Workshop Analysis connects Benjamin et al. directly to our pivotal questions.
NotebookLM: We've uploaded the key papers to Google's NotebookLM—an AI tool that lets you ask questions, get summaries, and explore connections across the readings. It can also generate audio overviews. Try asking it to compare arguments or explain technical concepts.
From Happiness Data to Economic Conclusions
WELLBY Reliability Framework Comprehensive overview of interpreting subjective wellbeing data. Articulates the four key assumptions underlying WELLBY applications, reviews evidence for and against each, and provides practical guidance for researchers and policymakers.
Adjusting for Scale-Use Heterogeneity in Self-Reported Well-Being
WELLBY Reliability A central paper for this workshop: develops methods to detect and adjust for differences in how people use wellbeing scales. Key finding: scale-use heterogeneity exists but may be less severe than feared.
Can We Treat Survey Responses as Cardinal? Evidence from 40,000 Replications
WELLBY Reliability Tests whether numerical scale labels represent equal intervals. Finds directional findings are robust across 40,000+ replications, BUT relative effect sizes (crucial for policy) are unreliable even under modest non-linearities. Directly challenges WELLBY comparisons.
A Happy Possibility About Happiness (and Other) Scales
WELLBY Reliability A systematic conceptual defense of treating wellbeing scales as cardinal and comparable. Argues that deviations from cardinality are small and not policy-relevant.
HLI's StrongMinds Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
Applied DALY-WELLBY HLI's comprehensive WELLBY-based cost-effectiveness analysis of StrongMinds and Friendship Bench. Estimates ~40 WELLBYs per $1,000. The Unjournal evaluates this report.
GiveWell's Assessment of HLI's StrongMinds Analysis
Applied DALY-WELLBY GiveWell's independent critical review of HLI's methodology. Finds StrongMinds ~5-80% as cost-effective as marginal AMF funding—a wide range illustrating how measurement assumptions affect conclusions.
The WELLBY: A New Measure of Social Value and Progress
WELLBY Reliability DALY-WELLBY Foundational: defines WELLBYs formally, clarifies assumptions (cardinality, comparability), and positions them as analogues to QALYs for policy analysis.
The Sad Truth About Happiness Scales
WELLBY Reliability The central critique: argues that ordinal wellbeing data cannot identify average welfare comparisons without strong assumptions. Shows that monotonic scale transformations consistent with the data could, in principle, reverse published findings.
How Threatening Are Transformations of Happiness Scales to Subjective Wellbeing Research?
WELLBY Reliability Direct response to Bond & Lang: shows that reversals of wellbeing findings would require implausibly extreme scale transformations. Provides empirical reassurance.
Measuring the Unmeasurable? Systematic Evidence on Scale Transformations
WELLBY Reliability New empirical work on scale-use heterogeneity from two confirmed participants (Kaiser, Lepinteur). Directly relevant to the linearity question.
Feeling Good is Feeling Better
WELLBY Reliability Tests intertemporal reliability: shows systematic recall bias in wellbeing reports, but contemporaneous data remain stable. Supports using real-time rather than retrospective measures.
Life Satisfaction, QALYs, and the Monetary Value of Health
DALY-WELLBY The empirical bridge: first large-scale attempt to link QALYs and WELLBYs using life satisfaction regressions on health and income. Estimates ~A$42,000-67,000 per QALY.
An Empirical Comparison of Wellbeing Measures Used in the UK
DALY-WELLBY Compares ONS-4 (life satisfaction), EQ-5D (QALYs), and other measures across UK datasets. Finds wellbeing and health measures are related but capture distinct dimensions.
Wellbeing Discussion Paper: Monetisation of Life Satisfaction Effect Sizes
DALY-WELLBY Policy The UK Treasury's guidance on integrating wellbeing into policy appraisal. Reviews methods for monetising wellbeing effects and relating WELLBYs to QALYs.
A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making (Chapter 4)
WELLBY Reliability DALY-WELLBY The practical handbook: covers WELLBY calculation, scale harmonisation, cost-per-WELLBY analysis, and relationship to QALYs. Essential reference for implementation.
Brookdale Index of Individual Wellbeing: Implementing Benjamin et al. for Israeli Policy
Applied Implementation Implements Benjamin et al.'s multi-dimensional stated-preference approach for policy evaluation in Israel. Reduced 136 aspects to 27 workable dimensions. Reveals preference heterogeneity across religious/secular groups. Evidence for feasibility of richer alternatives to single-item WELLBYs.
Quality Adjusted Life Years Based on Health and Consumption
DALY-WELLBY Proposes the "wellbeing QALY" (WB-QALY) combining health and consumption. Theoretical framework for cross-sectoral evaluation.
Unjournal LMIC Mental Health & Cash Transfer Evaluations (click to expand)
The Unjournal provides open peer evaluations of research relevant to global priorities. These evaluations offer expert critiques that help practitioners interpret findings—particularly useful for understanding the evidence base behind WELLBY calculations for mental health interventions.
Evaluation: HLI's StrongMinds & Friendship Bench Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
Applied WELLBY Independent evaluation of HLI's meta-analysis. Evaluators assess methodological choices around effect size estimation, depression-to-LS mapping, and assumed effect duration—the key parameters driving WELLBY calculations.
Evaluation: Long-Run Effects of Psychotherapy on Depression (Cuijpers et al.)
Applied Durability Meta-analysis of psychotherapy effects at 6–24 months follow-up. Critical for WELLBY calculations because effect duration is often the largest source of uncertainty when extrapolating wellbeing gains.
Evaluation: Cash Transfers vs Psychotherapy in Liberia (McGuire et al.)
Applied Comparison Direct experimental comparison of cash transfers and psychotherapy in an LMIC context. Particularly relevant because it measures multiple outcomes—psychological distress, consumption, life satisfaction—allowing cross-metric comparison.
Evaluation: Mental Health Therapy as Core Strategy in Ghana (Barker et al.)
Applied Scale-up Community-based mental health in Ghana—tests whether low-cost therapy models can scale. Important evidence for whether effect sizes from controlled trials hold at scale, a key uncertainty in cost-effectiveness projections.
Shared Reading Collection (19 PDFs)
We've compiled PDFs of key open-access readings into a shared folder. Workshop participants can download the collection for offline reading or upload to NotebookLM for AI-assisted exploration.
Included: Benjamin et al. (2023), Kaiser & Lepinteur (2025), Plant (2024), Frijters et al. (2024), Kaiser & Vendrik (2020), Kaiser & Lepinteur (2024), Bond & Lang (2019), Prati & Senik (2020), Huang et al. (2018), UK Treasury (2021), Cookson et al. (2020), Frijters & Krekel Handbook (2021), HLI StrongMinds (2024), Reingewertz et al. (2024), McGuire Cash Transfers (2022), plus Unjournal evaluations and the research prioritization table.
Some papers (Nature Human Behaviour, OUP handbook) require institutional access.
About this page
This reading list was compiled with AI assistance based on the Unjournal research scoping and organizer judgment. Annotations and relevance descriptions draw on the prioritization table. Please annotate any errors or suggest additions.