Jain University’s Department of Economics hosted a two-day conference on the dimensions of poverty and happiness in the economy in collaboration with Bangalore University, Focukare Movement and Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam.

Xavier V K, Professor of Jain University, in his opening remarks presented an overview of multiple models that were being presented in the conference to drive the economy from short-run fluctuations towards sustainable long-term equilibrium for growth, development and happiness outcome.

More than 200 delegates from India and abroad attended the conference and several innovative research papers were discussed. Dr. Adam Smith, inquired about the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. The discussion points centred around studies into the nature and causes affecting the happiness of people, institutions, and economy that leads to the comfort of the lower orders of society, which tends to be the biggest class in every nation.

Wealth has trebled over the past 50 years. However, wellbeing has remained flat. That mental illness has increased at an even more rapid rate seemed to be the consensus amongst the delegates. The conference triggered a debate about the state of inequality in India where the benefits of higher growth have not spread to all classes. India is a country with the highest inequality gap between the growth of the top 1 per cent and that of the entire population.

Liguino Bruni, Professor of Economics at Lumsa University, Rome, and at the Sophia University of Loppiano in Florence, said: “Economists have been getting interested in building models for happiness only in the last decades or two. Such models are differently hypothesised against neo-classical economists, who were interested in maximisation strategy using instruments of rationality.”

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