The 'Easterlin Paradox' holds that economic growth in nations does not buy greater happiness for the average citizen. This thesis was advanced in the 1970s on the basis of the then available data on happiness in nations. Later data have disproved most of the empirical claims behind the thesis,...

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...

The main issue of this article is to discuss the question of ‘precarity’ in the context of the theory of social quality (see Beck et al, 2001), with which to pave the way for developing further the theoretical foundation of precarity. Societal practice is the main challenge this concept...

The gap between the willingness to accept and willingness to pay is the outcome of incomplete valuation. The problem therefore is more about completing the valuation procedure. The first part of the solution involves two items: one is the inclusion of the direct and indirect income effects and...

We analyse the influence of climate on average life satisfaction in 79 countries using data from the World Values Survey. Climate is described in terms of ‘degree-months’ calculated as the cumulated monthly deviations from a base temperature of 65°F (18.3°C). Our results suggest that...

This paper offers an institutional explanation for the growth, organizational transformations, and decline of the piquetero social movement in Argentina, developed from a comparative perspective based on Latin America. I analyze which institutional arrangements, political actors, and...

The article discusses the main trends in the formation and evolution of political economy as a scientific discipline. By proposing to include under such label all studies of the organisation of human societies for what concerns the activities of exchange and production, the article deals with...

This paper examines how regionalization in the face of globalization has affected financial development in the context of banking system efficiency in Africa. Results which are robust to financial system efficiency and growth-led-finance nexus reveal that in the post-regionalization era: (1)...

The aim of this paper is to explain gift giving as due to a demand for social approval and status. In a simple framework we are able to account for a number of stylized facts. These are that gift giving is often reciprocal, that gifts tend to be inadequate, and that gift giving is sometimes...

The Paper gives a brief overview over the social economy in Ireland, presenting this against the background of the countries history and social structure