This book is a welcome consolidation and extension of the recent expanding debates on happiness and economics. Happiness and economics, as a new field for research, is now of pivotal interest particularly to welfare economists and psychologists. This Handbook provides an unprecedented forum for...

In this paper we analyze a two-sector growth model in which the utility function is not additively separable in consumption and “quality leisure time”. Differently from the main body of theoretical literature on quality leisure, we assume that the “productivity” of leisure is not...

In the lab, in both one-shot interactions and first rounds of repeated games, subjects turn out to cooperate significantly more than the well-known, classical Homo Oeconomicus model predicts. Behavioural economics has persuasively shown that this ‘irrational’ rate of cooperation is...

In this paper, we show that incorporating the relational dimension into an otherwise standard OLG model and focusing on dynamic leisure externalities leads to dramatically different predictions. Here, we show that when the old perceive private and relational consumption as substitutable goods, a...

This paper presents empirical evidence that “tax morale” – taxpayers’ intrinsic motivation to pay taxes – constitutes a new determinant of happiness, even after controlling for several demographic and socioeconomic factors. Using data on Italian households for 2004, we assess the...

In dealing with peer punishment as a cooperation enforcement device, laboratory studies have typically concentrated on discretionary sanctioning, allowing players to castigate each other arbitrarily. By contrast, in real life punishments are often meted out only insofar as punishers are entitled...

We focus on the tax evasion dynamics emerging from repeated interaction of three types of taxpayers: cheaters, honest citizens and punishers. By assuming that cultural evolution is driven by material payoffs only, we show that a long overlooked behavioral attitude towards taxation such as tax...

The recent era of economic turbulence has generated a growing enthusiasm for an increase in new and original economic insights based around the concepts of reciprocity and social enterprise. This stimulating and thought-provoking Handbook not only encourages and supports this growth, but also...