People spend a lot of time commuting and often find it a burden. According to economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated either on the labor or on the housing market so that individuals’ utility is equalized. However, in a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium, we...

The distinguished authors in this volume address the fundamental causes for such heterogeneous international experiences, placing particular emphasis on the role of institutions. They demonstrate how the study of economic development is increasingly linked to the development of institutions,...

The present paper examines the joint effect of fixed-term employment and work organization on job satisfaction using individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel GSOEP). Specifically, we analyze whether workers who are heterogeneous in terms of the type of working contract...

In many countries environmental policies and regulations are implemented to improveenvironmental quality and thus individuals’ well-being. However, how do individuals valuethe environment? In this paper, we review the Life Satisfaction Approach (LSA) representinga new non-market valuation...

In many countries, TV viewers have access to more and more TVchannels. We study whether people can cope with this and watch the amount of TVthey find optimal for themselves or whether they are prone to over-consumption. Wefind that heavy TV viewers do not benefit, but instead report lower life...

Over the last decades, empirical research on subjective well-being in the socialsciences has provided a major new stimulus to the discourse on individual happiness.Recently this research has also been linked to economics where reported subjective wellbeingis often taken as a proxy measure for...

A framework is proposed for organizing phenomena related to the (mis)predictionof utility, in particular neglecting adaptation. A categorization is introduced that accounts forasymmetries in misprediction. In decision-making, goods and activities satisfying extrinsicdesires are more salient than...

What makes people happy in life? This is a crucial question that has the potential to shake up economics. In recent years, the dissatisfaction with the understanding of welfare in economics together with the new opportunities to empirically study people's subjective wellbeing have spurred...

This timely and important book presents a unique study of happiness from both economic and political perspectives. It offers an overview of contemporary research on the emergent field of happiness studies and contains contributions by some of the leading figures in the field.