Doubts about the intrinsic value of economic performance are nothing new (T.Scitovsky, J.Galbraith). The paper starts with a criticism of „catching up“ models and a „puzzle“ of East Germans dissatisfaction with a rise of welfare after the Berlin wall’s fall. Author provides a sketch of...

Almost all of us sometimes voluntarily give up some scarce resources to make someone else better. Not only the amount of resources used for such purposes, but also other wider concerns (implications for private and government sector) have drawn the attention of economists in recent decades. In...

One of the key assumptions of neoclassical economics is the existence of the rational individual, who always tries to maximize his or her utility. The paper shows possibilities of experimental evaluation of this hypothesis with respect to the various groups of people who undertake the...