Carol Graham

Who is Carol Graham?

Carol Graham is a senior fellow and the Charles Robinson Chair at the Brookings Institution, a College Park professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor, and the author of numerous books, papers and edited volume chapters.

Graham has written extensively and is considered an expert on issues including poverty, inequality, insecurity, the political economy of market reforms, subjective well-being, and the economics of happiness. In Happiness around the World: the Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires, Graham explores what we know about the determinants of happiness across and within countries of different development levels, including some counterintuitive and surprising relationships. Her latest book, The Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being, examines what the new science and metrics of well-being can contribute to policy and, in particular, if they can serve as new benchmarks of economic progress.

Over the course of her career, Graham’s research has received support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Tinker and Hewlett Foundations, and the National Institute of Aging.