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...

Expectations and information about the growth of GDP per capita have a large influence on decisions made by private and public economic agents. It will be argued here that GDP (per capita) is far from a robust indicator of social welfare, and that its use as such must be regarded as a serious...

In this paper it is argued that subjective well-being of the individual depends on two types of variables. The first type consists of characteristics of the individual himself, such as age, health, income, etc. The second type of variables consists of the characteristics of the individuals...

We provide evidence that the social norm (expectation) of work has a detrimental causal effect on the mental well-being of individuals not able to abide by it. Using SHARE data on men aged 50+ from 10 European countries, we identify the social norm of work effect in a difference-in-differences...

Many important decisions are made without precise information about the probabilities of the outcomes. In such situations, individual ambiguity attitudes influence decision making. The present study identifies affective states as a transient cause of ambiguity attitudes. We conducted two...

Under relative performance pay, other-regarding workers internalize the negative externality they impose on other workers. In one form -increased own effort reduces others' payoffs- this results in other-regarding individuals depressing efforts. In another form punishment reduces the payoff of...