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What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research? (2002)
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| Venue: | FORTHCOMING IN JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE |
| Citations: | 544 - 24 self |
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@MISC{Frey02whatcan,
author = {Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer},
title = {What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?},
year = {2002}
}
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Abstract
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? In addition to this intrinsic interest, there are three major reasons for economists to consider happiness. The first is economic policy. At the micro-level, it is often impossible to make a Pareto-optimal proposal, because a social action entails costs for some individuals. Hence an evaluation of the net effects, in terms of individual utilities, is needed. On an aggregate level, economic policy must deal with trade-offs, especially those between unemployment and
Keyphrases
happiness research economic policy aggregate level united state declaration unalienable right good governance intrinsic interest self-evident truth institutional factor ultimate goal affect individual well-being individual utility net effect pareto-optimal proposal social action individual happiness economic growth major reason
