Scitovsky's The Joyless Economy and the economics of happiness

Maurizio Pugno

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2014, vol. 21, issue 2, 278-303

Abstract: Scitovsky's The Joyless Economy is especially well-known in recent economic studies on happiness. However, his insightful contributions have not been taken up as they deserve, mainly because they were, and still are, too original. By reconstructing Scitovsky's analysis on the basis of all his relevant writings, this article integrates his most original concepts, such as novelty, consumption skill, endogenous preferences, pleasurable uncertainty, into conventional economics; it compares Scitovsky's analysis to the economic thought of his time and to current consumer theory and it reveals his contributions to happiness economics, such as an original interpretation of the Easterlin paradox.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2012.683028

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