This paper examines a famous puzzle in social science. Why do some nations report such high happiness? Denmark, for … Italy do relatively poorly. Yet the explanation for this ranking - one that holds even after adjustment for GDP and socio …

of mental well-being? Denmark, for instance, regularly tops the league table of rich countries' happiness; Britain and … holds after adjustment for GDP and other socioeconomic variables -- is currently unknown. Using data on 131 countries, the …

. This entry also briefly discusses: recent history of well-being measurement; what makes people better off in theory; the …

, evaluations tend to be dominated by "social comparison" - what is happening to the incomes of others. An increase in the incomes … of others undercuts the tendency for happiness to grow with an increase in one's own income, and happiness remains fairly …, and the greater the shortfall, the less one's happiness. There is thus an asymmetry in the psychological roots of income …

The study of international well-being and its distribution remains focused on income. This paper addresses … multidimensional well-being from a capabilities perspective during the last one-and-a-half centuries. Relative inequality (population … terms but widening in absolute terms. Countries in the middle and lower deciles of the world distribution achieved the …