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When people’s income are low and at the survival, starvation level, then having enough to eat just to survive is very important. But once you are bey… - Yew-Kwang Ng
" "When people’s income are low and at the survival, starvation level, then having enough to eat just to survive is very important. But once you are beyond the survival, and some level of comfort, then recent happiness studies show that further increase in consumption in income is not that important to increase your happiness. And hence in my view, the more important issue...would be environmental economics. Because we are facing an environmental problem, which could become a catastrophe for the world. It could cause global extinction. Then that means that helping the world to survive — to overcome say the climate change crisis — in my view this is the most important area in economics.
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About Yew-Kwang Ng
Yew-Kwang Ng (Chinese: 黄有光; born 1942) is a Malaysian-Australian economist. Ng is a Professor of Economics at Fudan University, Shanghai, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He has published in a variety of academic disciplines and is best known for his work in welfare economics.
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Alternative Names:
Huang Youguang
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Additional quotes by Yew-Kwang Ng
...my paper argues that most animals' welfare are negative. It’s based on some axioms which may or may not be true. But if they are true then I think that we humans have an obligation to help our unfortunate, unlucky cousins to escape their miserable situations. While we cannot help them fully now, in the future, when we are more advanced economically, scientifically and ethically, then I think we should help to decrease their suffering. But even now, I’m in favor of helping to decrease their suffering for those measures that do not cost us too much. Especially for those animals that we farmed for our food...We should improve the conditions of, say, farmed chickens, who are suffering, so that the chickens we farm enjoy positive instead of negative welfare. In my view, that can be done at negligible if not zero costs to humans.
In China, until about 100 years ago people believed that if your husband died, no matter how young you were, you could not remarry. They thought that violating ‘chastity’ was obviously immoral – you didn’t have to justify this in terms of happiness! But I think this is very bad. Today many believe that it is only foolish, ancient people who think such silly things – modern people no longer do. For that particular idea, yes. But even now...throughout the world we still hold many such traditional beliefs which are similarly detrimental to happiness!
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[T]he real per capita income of the world now is about 7-8 times that of a century ago. If we proceed along an environmentally responsible path of growth, our great grandchildren in a century will have a real per capita income 5-6 times higher than our level now. Is it worth the risk of environmental disaster to disregard environmental protection now to try to grow a little faster? If this faster growth could be sustained, our great grandchildren would enjoy a real per capita income 7-8 times (instead of 5-6 times) higher than our level now. However, they may live in an environmentally horrible world or may well not have a chance to be born at all! The correct choice is obvious.
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