Prof Talita Greyling

Professor
Name: Talita Greyling
Location: D Ring 222 Auckland Park Kingsway Campus
School of Economics Academic Staff  Staff Members

Contact Details:
Tel: +27 (0)11 559 2586

Email: talitag@uj.ac.za

About Prof Talita Greyling

I specialize in well-being economics and quality of life studies and have a keen interest in fourth industrial revolution applications. I have developed the “Happiness Index” using Big Data and machine learning and am the director of the Gross National Happiness.today Project (GNH.today), which continuously research and develop the index. The project received the Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Award for Innovation, and the data has been accepted as official statistical data by the New Zeeland statistical office.

Talita is the author of numerous articles in multi-disciplinary and economic journals in top-ranked academic journals (impact factor of 3+). Since 2020 she has been actively involved in COVID-19 research projects. She is the associate editor for Pioneers in Quality of Life Theory and Research for the Journal of Applied Research in Quality of Life (impact factor 3.2) and a co-editor for economics in the Journal of Happiness Studies (impact factor 3.9). She is the Vice-President (Membership) of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies and is a Research Fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO). Talita is involved in several international collaborations related to well-being research.

I am fortunate to often act as a keynote speaker at events, this has included a TEDx talk, and I often participate in radio shows, television shows and podcasts.

Academic History

PhD in Economics, University of Johannesburg 2014.

NRF – B-rated researcher (considerable international recognition).

Awards

2023: Wiley: Top cited article. A tale of three countries: How did Covid-19 lockdown impact happiness? South African Journal of Economics, South African Journal of Economics, 89(1): 25-43. https://doi.org/10.1111/saje.12284

2023:  Keynote – special 90–minute session on Encyclopedia of Happiness, Quality of Life, and Subjective Well-Being and. Rotterdam. ISQOLS Conference. 21 August -25 August.

2021: Received the Vice Chancellors’ Distinguished Award (University of Johannesburg) for Innovation for the Gross National Happiness.today Project. https://www.uj.ac.za/news/uj-celebrates-excellence-with-2021-vice-chancellors-distinguished-awards/

2021 – 2024: Honorary appointment as Research Associate at Auckland University of Technology – Faculty of Culture and Society

2021: Invited as a TEDx-talk speaker on the GNH-Index (launched 27 August 2021)  https://youtu.be/BhWtQzTeL8Y

2021: GNH.today Index is accepted by New Zealand Treasury and New Zealand Statistical Services as an official economic indicator. This is the first statistical office that has accepted the indicator as an official statistic indicator https://www.stats.govt.nz/experimental/covid-19-data-portal?tab=Social&category=Life%20satisfaction&indicator=Gross%20national%20happiness

Most Recent Publications

• Sarracino, F., Greyling, T., O’Connor, K., Peroni, C. & Rossouw, S. 2023. A Year of Pandemic: Levels, Changes and Validity of Well-being Data from Twitter. Evidence From Ten Countries,  PLOS ONE, 18(2), e0275028. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0275028
• Greyling, T., Rossouw, S & Steyn, D. H. W. 2022. The Prediction of Intra-Day Stock Market Movements in Developed and Emerging Markets using Sentiment and Emotions from Twitter. Finance India. 24(3): 907-939.
•  Kopylova, N., Greyling, T. & Rossouw, S. 2022 Multidimensional quality of life of older adults in South Africa. Applied Research in Quality of Life.17:3027-3450 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-022-10072w
• Adhikari, T., Greyling, T. & Rossouw, S. 2022. The ugly truth about social welfare payments and households’ subjective well-being. South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, 25(1).
• Greyling, T. & Rossouw, S. 2022. Positive attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines: A cross-country analysis. PLoS ONE 17(3): e0264994. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264994
• Greyling, T., Rossouw, S. & Adhikari, T. 2021. The good, the bad and the ugly of lockdowns during Covid-19. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0245546. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546
• Rossouw, S., Greyling, T. & Adhikari, T. 2021. Happiness lost: Was the decision to implement lockdown the correct one? South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, 24(1): a3795. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajems.v24i1.3795