Over the past few years, there has been a steadily increasing interest on the part of economists in happiness research. We argue that reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical approximation to individual utility and that happiness research is able to contribute important...

In many countries environmental policies and regulations are implemented to improve environmental quality and thus individuals' well-being. However, how do individuals value the environment? In this paper, we review the Life Satisfaction Approach (LSA) representing a new non-market valuation...

We analyze individual satisfaction with life as a whole and satisfaction with the personal financial situation for Israeli citizens of Jewish and Arab descent. Our data set is the Israeli Social Survey (2006). We are especially interested in the impact of the religions Judaism, Islam and...

It is argued that the concept of well-being inequality cannot be properly defined without taking the referencing process into account. The reference effect depends on how frequently individuals compare with others and on the degree of social transparency in society. In this paper we employ the...

We propose that outcome utility and process utility can be distinguished and empirically measured. People gain procedural utility from participating in the political decision-making process itself, irrespective of the outcome. Nationals enjoy both outcome and process utility, while foreigners...

We study the importance of economists' professional situation toward their life satisfaction based on a unique survey of mostly academic economists. On average, economists report to be highly happy with life. Satisfaction is positively related to spending more time on doing research. The lack of...

Gordon Tullock has been one of the most important founders and contributors to Public Choice. Two innovations are typical "Tullock Challenges". The first relates to method: the measurement of subjective well-being, or happiness. The second relates to digital social networks such as Facebook,...

This study examines if couples time their work hours and how this work timing influences child care demand and the time that spouses jointly spend on leisure, household chores and child care. By using a innovative matching strategy, this studies identifies the timing of work hours that cannot be...

In this paper we compare the new satisfaction evaluation approach, developed in the nineties by Oswald, Clark, Blanchflower and others with the older income evaluation (IEQ) approach, developed by Van Praag and Kapteyn in the seventies of the previous century. We find that both approaches yield...