What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?

What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?

HAPPINESS IS generally considered an ultimate goal of life; virtually everybody wants to be happy. The United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 takes it as a self-evident truth that the "pursuit of happiness" is an "unalienable right," comparable to life and liberty. It follows that economics is-or should be-about individual happiness; in particular, how do economic growth, unemploymen...

Forthcoming in Journal of Economic Literature WHAT CAN ECONOMISTS LEARN FROM HAPPINESS RESEARCH?

Happiness is generally considered to be an ultimate goal in life; virtually everybody wants to be happy. The United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 takes it as a self-evident truth that the “pursuit of happiness” is an “unalienable right”, comparable to life and liberty. It follows that economics is – or should be – about individual happiness. In particular, the question is how do ec...

Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?

This chapter surveys the contributions of laboratory experiments to labor economics. We begin with a discussion of methodological issues: why (and when) is a lab experiment the best approach; how do laboratory experiments compare to field experiments; and what are the main design issues? We then summarize the substantive contributions of laboratory experiments to our understanding of principala...

Commentary : What can we Learn from New Research on Evidentials ?

What can emergency planners learn from research on human resilience?

Resilience is a concept that is widely used in emergency planning and preparedness activities (e.g. www.ukresilience.gov.uk). Working definitions of resilience in infrastructure, systems and communities exist for the purposes establishing benchmarks for effective emergency response, however it is not clear to what extent these initiatives are informed by the broad and well-established research ...