Happiness research is one of the most vivid and fruitful parts of modern economics. The focus is on empirical findings. In contrast, theoretical work has been rather neglected. The paper deals with three areas needing more analytical work: the choice or imposition of comparison or reference...

In economics there is presently an almost revolutionary development. The direct measurement of subjective welfare challenges traditional economics, inspires it, and opens new avenues for scientific research. The approaches and possibilities of an economic analysis of happiness are shown and...

Die oekonomische Forschung nutzt bei der Analyse der Religion im Wesentlichen zwei Herangehensweisen. Der erste Ansatz beschaeftigt sich mit dem Einfluss der Religion auf die Wirtschaft. Die Religionen beinhalten ein Wertesystem, welches oekonomische Einstellungen und die Produktion...

In economics there is presently an almost revolutionary development. The direct measurement of subjective welfare challenges traditional economics, inspires it, and opens new avenues for scientific research. The approaches and possibilities of an economic analysis of happiness are shown and...

A continuous and a discrete rating scale were implemented for a single item happiness question in a representative survey. A randomized controlled experiment enables unique analyses on data quality and distributions, which suggest superiority of the continuous scale. Results raise doubts about...

A growing economic literature recognizes and deals with the fact that economic agents' utility and well-being is not solely determined by absolute achievements, but also by achievements relative to a reference standard or reference group. In this literature it is assumed that the reference...

Terrorism will be high on the political agenda for many years to come. Various policies are open to a government fighting terrorism but, in any case, considerable costs are involved. In the competition for political support, the costs and benefits of anti-terrorism policies will be debated....

Research on happiness has produced valuable insights into the sources of subjective well-being that are of importance to economics. A major finding from this literature is that people exhibit a 'baseline' level of happiness that shows persistent strength over time. Here we explore the extent to...

This paper examines the relationship between parenthood and life satisfaction using longitudinal data on women from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Previous studies have focused on satisfaction differences between parents and comparable childless adults, mostly finding small and often negative...