EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Perspectives from the Happiness Literature and the Role of New Instruments for Policy Analysis

Bernard van Praag

No 2568, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: After having been ignored for a long time by economists, happiness is becoming an object of serious research in 21st century economics. In Section 2 we sketch the present status of happiness economics. In Section 3 we consider the practical applicability of happiness economics, retaining the assumption of ordinal individual utilities. In Section 4 we introduce a cardinal utility concept, which seems to us the natural consequence of the happiness economics methodology. In Section 5 we sketch how this approach can lead to a normative approach to policy problems that is admissible from a positivist point of view. Section 6 concludes.

Keywords: equivalence scales; subjective well-being; happiness economics; economic policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B21 B41 D63 I31 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2007-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hpe, nep-ltv and nep-upt
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Published - published in: CESifo Economic Studies, 2007, 53, 42-68

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp2568.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Perspectives from the Happiness Literature and the Role of New Instruments for Policy Analysis (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Perspectives from the Happiness Literature and the Role of New Instruments for Policy Analysis (2007) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2568

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2568