What makes people happy in life? This crucial question has the potential to shake up economics. In recent years, dissatisfaction with the understanding of welfare in economics and new opportunities for empirical study of people’s subjective well-being have spurred impressive and stimulating...

In this paper, we propose a decision framework where people are individually asked to either actively consent or dissent to some pro-social behavior. We hypothesize that confronting individuals with the choice of engaging in a specific pro-social behavior contributes to the formation of...

How are political events reflected in financial asset prices? Break points in sovereign debt prices are analyzed for Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Belgium during 1930-1948, using unique data from the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Unlike in countries involved in WWII, this market was...

In Not Just for the Money Professor Frey challenges traditional economic theory and argues that people do not act in expectation of monetary gain alone, nor do they work solely because they are paid. Furthermore, the author claims that higher monetary compensation as well as regulations...

Emphasising a positive approach to dealing with terrorism (the carrot), this book provides a critique of deterrence policy (the stick) which can be ineffective and even counterproductive, and proposes three alternative and effective anti-terrorist policies: Decentralisation reduces vulnerability...

This is a collection of articles on how the government influences the economy in order to secure re-election. The economy is steered such that unemployment and inflation are as low as possible, and the growth of real income as high as possible during the election period. The collection contains...

Bruno S. Frey illustrates what he perceives to be the inspirational quality of economics and how this differs from the type of economics studied in many academic institutions. He introduces insights into economics from a psychological perspective, dealing with issues such as transformation of...

The paper investigates the relationship between pro-social norms and its implications for improved environmental outcomes, an area which has been neglected in the environmental economics literature. We provide empirical evidence, demonstrating a strong link between perceived environmental...

The external influence of scholarly activity has to date been measured primarily in terms of publications and citations, metrics that also dominate the promotion and grant processes. Yet the array of scholarly activities visible to the outside world are far more extensive and recently developed...