In diesem Discussion-paper wird das Forschungsprogramm der Abteilung „Transnationale Konflikte und internationale Institutionen“ (TKI) vorgestellt. Das Forschungsprogramm richtet den Blick auf eine Entwicklungsdynamik, die durch die Errichtung der internationalen Institutionen nach dem...

Although decision makers are often reported to have difficulties in making comparisons between multidimensional decision outcomes, economic theory assumes a unidimensional utility measure. This paper reviews evidence from behavioral and brain sciences to assess whether, and for what reasons,...

Happiness measures, reflecting individuals’ well-being, have received increasing attention by policy makers. Policies could target absolute happiness levels when aiming at increasing a society’s well-being. But given upper bounds of happiness measures, as well as the possibilities of...

As a result of the disenchantment with traditional income-based measures of welfare, alternative welfare measures have gained increasing attention in recent years. Two of the most prominent measures of well-being come from subjective well-being research and the (objective) capability approach....

What are the effects of innovativeness on well-being? This paper argues that research on subjective well-being has progressed to a point where measures of subjective well-being (or: happiness) can usefully be employed to assess the welfare effects of innovative change. Based on a discussion of...

We apply matching estimators to the large-scale British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set to estimate the impact of volunteering on subjective well-being. We take into account personality traits that could jointly determine volunteering behaviour and subjective well-being. We find that the...

<Para ID="Par1">In this short note I reply to a comment made by Christian Schubert, who argues that my criticism of libertarian paternalism cannot be upheld under a constitutional economics paradigm. I disagree: it is implausible to assume that sovereign individuals behind a veil of ignorance would actually...</para>

Can sustainability economics profit from the fusion with Amartya Sen's capability approach, thereby gaining solid normative foundations and wider applicability? We argue that this fusion is mistaken to the extent that the capability approach is essentially a static normative framework while...

In recent economic literature, there has been an increasing interest in modelling preferences as endogenous. Some arguments go along the lines that institutions shape preferences. This paper suggests that adopting a more substantive concept of preferences furthers our understanding of how they...

Innovations are inherently connected to knowledge transfers. The need of face-to-face contacts to transfer tacit knowledge is commonly argued to cause a regional dimension of innovative activities. The paper presents an alternative explanation based on a model of boundedly rational actors who...