While research on subjective well-being abounds, comparatively little thought has been given to its practical policy implications. Two approaches to derive policy advice have emerged in the literature: One is organized in terms of the idea to maximize a hedonic social welfare function, the other...

„Welfare“ and „wealth“ are discussed as central economic notions in the context of the history of economic thought. One focus is laid on the limits to economic growth discussed already by 18th century Physiocrats and in the 19th century especially by John Stuart Mill and W. Stanley...

Adam Smith on language. Like most 18th century scholars, Adam Smith was not restricted to one field. One of his interests, besides economics, was language, which may partly be a consequence of his Scottish origin and the low standing of the Scottish dialect. Smith's Lectures on Rhetoric and...

Hayek's approach to cultural and institutional evolution has been frequently criticized because it is explicitly based on the controversial notion of (cultural) group selection. In this paper this criticism is rejected on the basis of recent works on biological and cultural evolution. The...

After Wicksell in 1911 had published the second Swedish edition of his Lectures on Political Economy, a debate began in the Ekonomisk Tidskrift between Wicksell and his opponent Sven Brisman. The controversy was mainly about the concept of capital and the rate of interest, but the circumstances...

The citations of Heckscher (1879-1952) in journals included in the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index do not, of course, give a complete picture of his significance as a scholar and in public debate. For reasons linked to the selection process, there is a...

Alfred Marshall was by no means ignored, but his influence on Swedish economic thought at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century was limited. On the general level,science and culture in Sweden were more dependent on the German-language countries. In a small country like Sweden,...

Denna text handlar om Gunnar Westin Silverstolpe, den förste professorn i nationalekonomi vid Göteborgs Handelshögskola. En kortfattad bakgrund tecknas i form av Göteborgs Högskolas tillkomst 1891 som en kompromiss mellan dem som ville ha en ”Fri Akademi” utan examina och inriktad på...

Welfare economics relies on consequentialism. Whether a public action is good or bad is then determined by the consequences for people, rather than for example by the extent to which it infringes on others’ rights. Yet, many philosophers have questioned this assumption. The present note...

Uncertainty about the future is an important determinant of well-being,especially in developing countries where financial markets and other market failures result in ineffective insurance mechanisms. However, separating the effects of future uncertainty from realised events, and then measuring...