Abstract

This paper presents an analytical model of the dynamic interrelationships between education, creativity, and happiness based on both theoretical insights and recent empirical neurological studies. In the model, the outcome is conditional on individual intelligence and risk aversion. Specifically, it focuses on two main determinants of creativity (divergent and convergent thinking), and compares two main educational policies (scholarships vs. training) in terms of their impacts on the happiness gained from creativity in the general and healthy population. An empirical test is provided by matching the model’s predictions with the results of recent neuroscience research. Numerical simulations suggested that improving convergent thinking is more important than improving divergent thinking for creativity to generate happiness throughout an individual’s life, provided both divergent and convergent thinking have achieved a sufficiently large degree; and that unstructured training in divergent thinking (e.g., in accounting schools) is necessary to reach richer but less intelligent people, whereas scholarships or unstructured training in convergent thinking (e.g., in art schools) are necessary to reach more intelligent but less rich people.