Event: Islands, Islanders and the Geography of Happiness and Well-being
Date: Monday 5 May 2025
Time: 14:30 - 16.00 (CEST)
Venue: University of Malta鈥檚 Msida Campus, IT 福利在线免费, Room VC101 and online ()
The Islands and Small States Institute (ISSI) of the University of Malta, in collaboration with the Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy (FEMA), will be holding a seminar and webinar titled 鈥淚slands, Islanders and the Geography of Happiness and Wellbeing鈥.
The event will take place on Monday 5 May 2025 between 14:30 and 16:00 (CEST) at the University of Malta鈥檚 Msida Campus, IT 福利在线免费, Room VC101. Registration in person is available by Friday 2 May, is required, as spaces are limited.
Virtual participation on Zoom is also possible and registration is required for online attendance.
Abstract: " Islands, Islanders and the Geography of Happiness and Well-being" 鈥 presented by Professor Dimitris Ballas.
This presentation revisits the literature on the economics and spatial economics of happiness (including earlier work by the speaker on 鈥榳hat makes a happy city鈥 see Ballas, 2013 and the Economic Geography of Happiness 鈥 Ballas, 2021) with a particular focus on geographical and environmental features pertaining to islands and related characteristics and concepts such as insularity and islandness.
The presentation also builds on efforts that led to the development and launch of a new Erasmus Mundus International Research Master Programme entitled coordinated by the University of Groningen. It has long been argued that islands are special cases for sustainable economic and social development. They are relatively isolated and 鈥榦n their own鈥 compared to mainland areas, yet they are also more dependent and need to be well connected to other areas more than mainland areas. The dominant economic development model, which is based on high population concentrations, specialization, large-scale production, and agglomeration economies does not directly apply to most islands, especially the smaller and medium-sized ones.
The presentation will highlight ongoing work and statistical analysis of suitable secondary data in Europe including most of the variables that are thought to be associated with subjective well-being measures and examines whether and the extent to which insularity and living on an island may have a statistically significant impact on happiness when compared to mainland areas. To that end the presentation also will also consider a number of attributes of islands that are typically considered as negative from a regional economic performance perspective (mostly relating to remoteness and poor accessibility to the mainland) but which might be considered as positive in terms of happiness and well-being (as is also evident by the popularity of many remote islands as tourist destinations). Finally, the presentation will consider and discuss the policy implications of the analysis.
The presentation also builds on efforts that led to the development and launch of a new Erasmus Mundus International Research Master Programme entitled coordinated by the University of Groningen. It has long been argued that islands are special cases for sustainable economic and social development. They are relatively isolated and 鈥榦n their own鈥 compared to mainland areas, yet they are also more dependent and need to be well connected to other areas more than mainland areas. The dominant economic development model, which is based on high population concentrations, specialization, large-scale production, and agglomeration economies does not directly apply to most islands, especially the smaller and medium-sized ones.
The presentation will highlight ongoing work and statistical analysis of suitable secondary data in Europe including most of the variables that are thought to be associated with subjective well-being measures and examines whether and the extent to which insularity and living on an island may have a statistically significant impact on happiness when compared to mainland areas. To that end the presentation also will also consider a number of attributes of islands that are typically considered as negative from a regional economic performance perspective (mostly relating to remoteness and poor accessibility to the mainland) but which might be considered as positive in terms of happiness and well-being (as is also evident by the popularity of many remote islands as tourist destinations). Finally, the presentation will consider and discuss the policy implications of the analysis.
About Dimitris Ballas:
Prof. Dimitris Ballas is Full Professor, Chair of Economic Geography in the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen, Director of the Erasmus Mundus international master programme Islands and Sustainability, and academic lead of the Islands and Sustainability Lab of the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development. He has a first degree in Economics (1996, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece), a Master of Arts (with distinction) in Geographical 福利在线免费 Systems (1997, University of Leeds, UK) and a PhD in Geography (2001, University of Leeds, UK). He has also previously worked as Associate Professor at the University of the Aegean, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield and has also held Visiting Research Scholar positions at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria) and a Visiting Professor position at Ritsumeikan University (Japan).
Professor Ballas has published widely in the fields of social and economic geography, social and spatial inequalities, regional science and Geoinformatics in the Social Sciences, including highly cited articles and books on the geography of happiness and well-being, as well as on spatial microsimulation and related quantitative methods. He also has extensive experience in using Geographical 福利在线免费 Systems (GIS) and spatial microsimulation for the evaluation of the socio-economic and spatial impact of national social policies, as well as area-based policies. His work includes the books The Human Atlas of Europe: A Continent United in Diversity, co-authored with Danny Dorling and Benjamin Hennig (Policy Press) and GIS and the Social Sciences: Theory and Applications co-authored with Graham Clarke, Rachel S. Franklin and Andy Newing (Routledge).
The event will be hosted by Prof. Stefano Moncada, Director of the ISSI.
Further information is available by email.
