Forthcoming in Journal of Economic Literature WHAT CAN ECONOMISTS LEARN FROM HAPPINESS RESEARCH?
نویسندگان
چکیده
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 economic growth, unemployment and inflation, as well as institutional factors such as good governance, affect individual well-being?
منابع مشابه
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...
متن کاملLong-running German panel survey shows that personal and economic choices, not just genes, matter for happiness.
Psychologists and economists take contradictory approaches to research on what psychologists call happiness or subjective well-being, and economists call subjective utility. A direct test of the most widely accepted psychological theory, set-point theory, shows it to be flawed. Results are then given, using the economists' newer "choice approach"--an approach also favored by positive psychologi...
متن کاملEconometric Analysis of Happiness Dec , 2004
What Creates Happiness? The economy and the economic policies of government are major concerns for people today. Upon reflection, however, many would agree that the ultimate goal in life should be happiness and satisfaction with life, rather than economic growth, high personal income or a colorful career itself. No doubt, income and consumption (which are what economists normally analyze as pro...
متن کاملAdopting New International Health Instruments – What Can We Learn From the FCTC?; Comment on “The Legal Strength of International Health Instruments - What It Brings to Global Health Governance?”
This Commentary forms a response to Nikogosian’s and Kickbusch’s forward-looking perspective about the legal strength of international health instruments. Building on their arguments, in this commentary we consider what we can learn from the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for the adoption of new legal international health instruments.
متن کاملEconomic Analysis of Global Climate Change Policy: a Primer
Global climate change — perhaps even more than other environmental problems — can be addressed successfully only with a solid understanding of its economic dimensions. This paper, prepared as an introduction to the economics section of a forthcoming book from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, provides a primer for non-economists on how economic analysis can be brought to bear on three br...
متن کامل