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The Economics of Happiness

Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics

Abstract

Welfare and well-being have traditionally been gauged by using income and employment statistics, life expectancy, and other objective measures. The Economics of Happiness, which is based on people’s reports of how their lives are going, provides a complementary yet radically different approach to studying human well-being. Typically, subjective well-being measures include positive and negative feelings (e.g., momentary experiences of happiness or stress), life evaluations (e.g., life satisfaction), and feelings of having a life purpose. Both businesses and policymakers now increasingly make decisions and craft policies based on such measures. This chapter provides an overview of the happiness economics approach and outlines the promises and pitfalls of subjective well-being measures.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mark Fabian, Caspar Kaiser, Anthony Lepinteur, Kelsey O’Connor, Olga Popova, and Nick Powdthavee for helpful comments and insights. All errors are our own.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business, Global Economics and Management, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Milena Nikolova

  2. The Brookings Institution/University of Maryland, Washington, DC, USA

    Carol Graham

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Correspondence to Milena Nikolova .

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    Klaus F. Zimmermann

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  1. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Milena Nikolova

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Nikolova, M., Graham, C. (2020). The Economics of Happiness. In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_177-1

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  1. Latest

    The Economics of Happiness
    Published:
    10 December 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_177-2

  2. Original

    The Economics of Happiness
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    08 December 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_177-1

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