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| Richard Easterlin | |
|---|---|
| Name | Richard Easterlin |
| Birth date | 1926 |
| Birth place | Santa Monica, California |
| Alma mater | University of Southern California; University of Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Economist; Demographer; Professor |
| Known for | Easterlin paradox; research on happiness and fertility |
Richard Easterlin is an American economist and demographer noted for his work on the relationship between income, fertility, and subjective well-being. His research influenced debates in demography and economics and intersected with scholars across psychology, sociology, and public policy. He taught at major institutions and contributed to journals and policy discussions involving population trends, labor markets, and welfare.
Easterlin was born in Santa Monica, California, and attended the University of Southern California where he completed undergraduate studies before earning a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. During his formative years he was exposed to debates involving scholars at the Cowles Commission, the Economic History Association, and contacts associated with the National Bureau of Economic Research. His doctoral training placed him in intellectual networks linked to figures at the RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, and the Institute for Advanced Study.
Easterlin held faculty positions that connected him with departments at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, and visiting appointments at institutions such as the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics, and Princeton University. He served in editorial roles for journals affiliated with the American Economic Association, the Population Association of America, and the National Academy of Sciences. His collaborations and exchanges brought him into dialogue with economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, demographers at the Population Council, and social scientists at the Russell Sage Foundation.
Easterlin is best known for formulating the statement that later became called the Easterlin paradox, which links trends in income and reported well-being across time and cohorts. He argued that within-country cross-sectional correlations between income distribution and self-reported happiness differ from temporal trends where rising national income does not necessarily increase average subjective well-being. This claim engaged researchers associated with the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the United Nations who study development, poverty, and quality of life. His work addressed links among fertility transitions studied by scholars at the United Nations Population Division, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Easterlin combined empirical analysis with theoretical frames debated in venues like the American Statistical Association, the Royal Economic Society, and the Econometric Society.
His writings prompted responses from researchers at the London School of Economics, the University of Oxford, and the University of California, Berkeley who reanalyzed survey series such as those maintained by the General Social Survey, the European Social Survey, and the World Values Survey. These exchanges touched scholarship from the National Opinion Research Center, the Pew Research Center, and the Institute for Social Research at University of Michigan. The debate over income and happiness also connected to work by scholars associated with the Nobel Prize laureates and thinkers at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Easterlin published influential articles in journals and volumes produced by the American Economic Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Economic Literature, and collections from the National Academies Press. His major papers on fertility and subjective well-being appear alongside edited volumes from the Population Council and monographs distributed by university presses at Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and the University of Chicago Press. His ideas influenced policy briefs at the World Bank and analytical frameworks used by the International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Colleagues and critics from institutions such as the London School of Economics, the University of Cambridge, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales have cited and debated his work, while doctoral students trained under him went on to positions at Harvard University, Yale University, and Stanford University.
Easterlin received recognition from organizations including the Population Association of America, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. He participated in panels at the Royal Society and received career acknowledgments from the Economic History Association and the American Economic Association. His contributions were discussed in forums organized by the Russell Sage Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Category:American economists Category:Demographers