Over the last decades, empirical research on subjective well-being in the social sciences has provided a major new stimulus to the discourse on individual happiness. Recently this research has also been linked to economics where reported subjective wellbeing is often taken as a proxy measure for...

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 economics there is presently an almost revolutionary development. The direct measurement of subjective welfare challenges traditional economics, inspires it, and opens new avenues for scientific research. The approaches and possibilities of an economic analysis of happiness are shown and...

Obesity has become a major health issue. Research in economics has providedimportant insights as to how technological progress reduced the relative price of food andcontributed to the increase in obesity. However, the increased availability of food might wellhave overstrained will power and led...

A crucial aspect of constitutional design is the provision of rules onhow a constitution is to be amended. If procedures for constitutional amendmentare very restrictive, changes will take place outside the constitution. Thesechanges are likely to be against the citizens’ interests and their...

Over the last decades, empirical research on subjective well-being in the social sciences has provided a major new stimulus to the discourse on individual happiness. Recently this research has also been linked to economics where reported subjective wellbeing is often taken as a proxy measure for...

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...