A01=Alois Stutzer
A01=Bruno S. Frey
Adaptive strategies
Amartya Sen
Author_Alois Stutzer
Author_Bruno S. Frey
Behavioral economics
Benevolent dictatorship
Bias
Capability approach
Cardinal utility
Category=JH
Category=KCA
Category=KCB
Category=KCC
Comparative advantage
Conspicuous consumption
Constitutional economics
Developed country
Developing country
Direct democracy
Dummy variable (statistics)
Economic interventionism
Economics
Economy
Economy and Society
Employment
Endowment effect
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Estimation
Expected utility hypothesis
Externality
Extraversion and introversion
Genuine progress indicator
Gross National Happiness
Happiness economics
Hedonic treadmill
Income
Inflation
Institution
Involuntary unemployment
Jeremy Bentham
Job satisfaction
Job security
Law of demand
Least squares
Life satisfaction
Marginal utility
Meta-analysis
Money illusion
Neoclassical economics
Opportunity cost
Optimism
Optimism bias
Ordinal utility
Ordinary least squares
Percentage point
Physical Quality of Life Index
Popularity
Positive feedback
Poverty
Probit model
Purchasing power
Rational choice theory
Relative income hypothesis
Sampling (statistics)
Social welfare function
Socioeconomics
Standard of living
Subjective well-being
Tax
Thorstein Veblen
Tibor Scitovsky
Unemployment
Utilitarianism
Volunteering
Weighting
Welfare
Well-being
Product details
- ISBN 9780691069982
- Weight: 312g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 02 Dec 2001
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Curiously, economists, whose discipline has much to do with human well-being, have shied away from factoring the study of happiness into their work. Happiness, they might say, is an "unscientific" concept. This is the first book to establish empirically the link between happiness and economics--and between happiness and democracy. Two respected economists, Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer, integrate insights and findings from psychology, where attempts to measure quality of life are well-documented, as well as from sociology and political science. They demonstrate how micro- and macro-economic conditions in the form of income, unemployment, and inflation affect happiness. The research is centered on Switzerland, whose varying degrees of direct democracy from one canton to another, all within a single economy, allow for political effects to be isolated from economic effects. Not surprisingly, the authors confirm that unemployment and inflation nurture unhappiness. Their most striking revelation, however, is that the more developed the democratic institutions and the degree of local autonomy, the more satisfied people are with their lives.
While such factors as rising income increase personal happiness only minimally, institutions that facilitate more individual involvement in politics (such as referendums) have a substantial effect. For countries such as the United States, where disillusionment with politics seems to be on the rise, such findings are especially significant. By applying econometrics to a real-world issue of general concern and yielding surprising results, Happiness and Economics promises to spark healthy debate over a wide range of the social sciences.
Bruno Frey is Professor of Economics at the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics in Zurich. He is the author of Economics as a Science of Human Behavior, Not Just for the Money. An Economic Theory of Personal Motivation: The New Democratic Federalism for Europe and Inspiring Economics. Alois Stutzer is a lecturer on the theory of economic policy at the University of Zurich, where he is also finishing his Ph.D. on economics and happiness. He has authored several papers in the fields of public choice, labor economics, and economics and psychology.
