On ultraorthodox jews and ancient tribes in Africa

I was talking to my ex-boss a couple of weeks ago about economic development. We talked about how the west tries to promote public policies that induce economic growth and a better "quality of life" on the less developed regions.

He told me "You know, I saw a poll the other day about happiness, and the Jewish ultra-orthodox sector (in Israel) was the happiest one... So why do you want them to go and study, or to go and participate in the labor force? They are happy just the way they are". Well, two things should be taken into consideration:
1) My ex-boss is himself a religious guy (not an ultra-orthodox, but of course that he has some kind of sympathy towards them).
2) I am not a big believer of polls. Moreover, I am not a believer of polls when they try to measure something that is unmeasurable, like happiness.

What is happiness? How do you measure it? Ultra-orthodox Jews, together with Israeli Arabs, are the poorest sectors of society in Israel. Not only in terms of money, but also in terms of education. So, how come they are happy??? But on the other side, if they are that happy, why do they need political parties that promote laws for their sector. But this is an issue for another debate.

Well, economists are aware of the difference between wealth and happiness. People are not better-off by how much money they make, but how much utility they have from consumption, leisure, human capital, having children, etc. However, our mistake is that we think that the utility function of most human beings are similar in their components. For example, everybody enjoy consumption. Is this a fact? I am not sure.

Another example is the one that came up in a conversation with two fellow students: M and R. They are very bright, so they deserve to be immortalized in the web pages of my blog. Take for example a lost tribe in Africa. Maybe they have higher utility than any average new yorker well positioned family. Who says that if we introduce to that tribe schools, hospitals and more efficient markets they will be better-off?

Well, there are some possibles answers. First, the tribe is happier in terms of what they know. Is this so? For example, let's assume that the well positioned family can afford living as the tribe. Why don't they do that? Maybe this means, by revealed preferences (see the previous post) that living near central park with 2 BMW's is making them better-off. On the other hand, the tribe cannot afford living in Manhattan, probably. So, in terms of what they have they are the happiest, but because they don't know that they could have a better quality of life.

However, maybe if we give the tribe air tickets to New York and a place to stay in Manhattan, they will probably ask us to go back to their little place after a while.

So here we are talking about culture. The quality of life that we are used to have in the west also affects the culture we live in and the same happens the other way around: culture affects the quality of life. So the debate turns to be more difficult. What culture is better? How do you measure 'culture efficiency' or whatever?

I think there is no way to do so.... And probably given their culture, the tribe in Africa and the ultra-orthodox Jews are the happiest. But, maybe (as my friend M said yesterday), the incentive to induce a change in these societies is not necessarily for their sake, but for ours. If ultra-orthodox Jews will increase their labor supply, and will have better schooling indicators, this will have a positive impact on the economic indicators of Israel. Although they won't be necessarily better-off, we will. And if the society as a whole will be, is it worth to induce the changes in these societies?

This is already not a dilemma for economists... or at least not for me.

In the meanwhile, I will start thinking about the next topic...