To assess whether and when the equation economic growth = better life holds, it is necessary to understand what human motivations drive the economic growth process. The preference subjectivism of canonical welfare economics is of little help here as it treats the motivations underlying...

Normative reasoning in welfare economics and social contract theory usually presumes invariable, context-independent individual preferences. Following recent work particularly in behavioral economics this assumption is difficult to defend. This paper therefore explores what can be said about...

An evolutionary perspective on economic behavior has to account for the influences that the human genetic endowment has on the choices the agents make. Likely to have been fixed in times of fierce selection pressure, this endowment is presumably adapted to the living conditions of early humans....

Normative reasoning in welfare economics and social contract theory usually presumes invariable, context-independent individual preferences. Following recent work particularly in behavioral economics this assumption is difficult to defend. This paper therefore explores what can be said about...

To assess whether and when the equation "economic growth = better life" holds, it is necessary to understand what human motivations drive the economic growth process. The preference subjectivism of canonical welfare economics is of little help here as it treats the motivations underlying...

An evolutionary perspective on economic behavior has to account for the influences that the human genetic endowment has on the choices the agents make. Likely to have been fixed in times of fierce selection pressure, this endowment is presumably adapted to the living conditions of early humans....