In this paper, we attempt to show why the importance of relational goods compared to conventional goods and status goods threatens to decline in contemporary societies. In our point of view, the development of the relative significance of these three types of goods is not a consequence of...

In this paper, a formalization of Martin Seligman’s concept of full life is presented by employing basic microeconomics. With the formalized version of the concept, it can be explained why people differ with respect to the levels of pleasant, engaged and meaningful life they are trying to...

In the following we will propose an indicator that focuses on physical as well as socio-psychic wellbeing. At its core, this indicator is a modification of Ruut Veenhoven’s concept of Happy Life Years and it is called Happy Income. This indicator is constructed on the intention that the...

This paper presents a formalization and modification of Martin Seligman’s concept of full life, employing basic microeconomics. A class of Stone–Geary utility functions is proposed as an analytical tool for scrutinizing individual decision making with respect to a pleasant, engaged and...

The influence of the creative class on regional economic well-being is discussed by using the concepts of Richard Florida. We apply this theory on the level of all German major cities in a 10 year period from 1997 to 2006. The theoretical part gives an overview about similar applications. The...