Download or read book The Political Economy of Human Happiness written by Benjamin Radcliff and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Data, methods and theories of contemporary social science can be applied to resolve how political outcomes in democratic societies determine the quality of life that citizens experience. Radcliff seeks to provide an objective answer to the debate between left and right over what public policies best contribute to people leading positive and rewarding lives. Radcliff offers an empirical answer, relying on the same canons of reason and evidence required of any other issue amenable to study through social-scientific means. The analysis focuses on the consequences of three specific political issues: the welfare state and the general size of government, labor organization, and state efforts to protect workers and consumers through economic regulation. The results indicate that in each instance, the program of the Left best contributes to citizens leading more satisfying lives and, critically, that the benefits of greater happiness accrue to everyone in society, rich and poor alike.
Download or read book Happiness Economics and Politics written by Amitava Krishna Dutt and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For those already drawn by the allure of happiness studies, Dutt and Radcliff here provide a rich tour of the frontier in the field. And for curmudgeons, this work goes far to defuse the skeptical reflex. It is subtle, intelligent, wide-ranging, informative and even readable throughout. James K. Galbraith, The University of Texas at Austin, US 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. General issues such as the history and conceptualization of happiness are explored, and the underpinning theories and empirics analyzed. The ways in which economic and political factors both separately and interactively affect the quality of human life are examined, illustrating the importance of a self-consciously multi-disciplinary approach to the field. In particular, the effects of consumption, income growth, inequality, discrimination, democracy, the nature of government policies, and labor organization on happiness are scrutinized. In conclusion, the contributors prescribe what can and should be done at individual and societal levels to improve human well-being and happiness. This wide-ranging and interdisciplinary book makes a unique contribution to the literature. As such, it will prove a fascinating read for students and scholars of economics, political science, psychology, sociology, and of course, to those with a special interest in the analysis of happiness and human well-being.
Download or read book Happiness and Economics written by Bruno S. Frey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Curiously, economists, whose discipline has much to do with human well-being, have shied away from factoring the study of happiness into their work. Happiness, they might say, is an ''unscientific'' concept. This is the first book to establish empirically the link between happiness and economics--and between happiness and democracy. Two respected economists, Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer, integrate insights and findings from psychology, where attempts to measure quality of life are well-documented, as well as from sociology and political science. They demonstrate how micro- and macro-economic conditions in the form of income, unemployment, and inflation affect happiness. The research is centered on Switzerland, whose varying degrees of direct democracy from one canton to another, all within a single economy, allow for political effects to be isolated from economic effects. Not surprisingly, the authors confirm that unemployment and inflation nurture unhappiness. Their most striking revelation, however, is that the more developed the democratic institutions and the degree of local autonomy, the more satisfied people are with their lives. While such factors as rising income increase personal happiness only minimally, institutions that facilitate more individual involvement in politics (such as referendums) have a substantial effect. For countries such as the United States, where disillusionment with politics seems to be on the rise, such findings are especially significant. By applying econometrics to a real-world issue of general concern and yielding surprising results, Happiness and Economics promises to spark healthy debate over a wide range of the social sciences.
Download or read book The Practices of Happiness written by Ian Steedman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com as well as the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license and is part of the OAPEN-UK research project. There is growing evidence that rising levels of prosperity in Western economies since 1945 have not been matched by greater incidences of reported well-being and happiness. Indeed, material affluence is often accompanied instead by greater social and individual distress. A growing literature within the humanities and social sciences is increasingly concerned to chart not only the underlying trends in recorded levels of happiness, but to consider what factors, if any, contribute to positive and sustainable experiences of well-being and quality of life. Increasingly, such research is focusing on the importance of values and beliefs in human satisfaction or quality of life; but the specific contribution of religion to these trends is relatively under-examined. This unique collection of essays seeks to rectify that omission, by identifying the nature and role of the religious contribution to wellbeing. A unique collection of nineteen leading scholars from the field of economics, psychology, public theology and social policy have been brought together in this volume to explore the religious contribution to the debate about happiness and well-being. These essays explore the religious dimensions to a number of key features of well-being, including marriage, crime and rehabilitation, work, inequality, mental health, environment, participation, institutional theory, business and trade. They engage particularly closely with current trends in economics in identifying alternative models of economic growth which focus on its qualitative as well as quantitative dimensions. This unique volume brings to public notice the nature and role of religion’s contribution to wellbeing, including new ways of measurement and evaluation. As such, it represents a valuable and unprecedented resource for the development of a broad-based religious contribution to the field. It will be of particular relevance for those who are concerned about the continuing debate about personal and societal well-being, as well as those who are interested in the continuing significance of religion for the future of public policy.
Download or read book Economics of Happiness written by Bruno S. Frey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-02-26 with total page 75 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on what makes people happy. The author explains methods for measuring subjective life satisfaction and well-being by discussing economic and sociodemographic factors, as well as the psychological, cultural and political dimensions of personal happiness. Does higher income increase happiness? Are people in rich countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries, happier than those living elsewhere? Does losing one’s job make one unhappy? What is the role of genetic endowments inherited from our parents? How important are physical and emotional health to subjective life satisfaction? Do older people tend to be happier, or younger people? Are close social relationships necessary for happiness? Do political conditions, such as respect for human rights, democracy and autonomy, play a part? How can governments contribute to the population’s happiness? This book answers these questions on the basis of extensive interdisciplinary research reflecting the current state of knowledge. The book will appeal to anyone interested in learning more about the various dimensions of personal well-being beyond the happiness-prosperity connection, as well as to policymakers looking for guidance on how to improve happiness in societies.
Download or read book Handbook on the Economics of Happiness written by L. Bruni and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a welcome consolidation and extension of the recent expanding debates on happiness and economics. Happiness and economics, as a new field for research, is now of pivotal interest particularly to welfare economists and psychologists.
Download or read book The Politics of Advanced Capitalism written by Pablo Beramendi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book serves as a sequel to two distinguished volumes on capitalism: Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge, 1999) and Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1985). Both volumes took stock of major economic challenges advanced industrial democracies faced, as well as the ways political and economic elites dealt with them. However, during the last decades, the structural environment of advanced capitalist democracies has undergone profound changes: sweeping deindustrialization, tertiarization of the employment structure, and demographic developments. This book provides a synthetic view, allowing the reader to grasp the nature of these structural transformations and their consequences in terms of the politics of change, policy outputs, and outcomes. In contrast to functionalist and structuralist approaches, the book advocates and contributes to a 'return of electoral and coalitional politics' to political economy research.
Download or read book Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Utility written by Anthony Kenny and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2011-12-09 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A volume on the nature, ingredients, causes and consequences of human happiness by the father and son team of Anthony and Charles Kenny.
Download or read book The Happiness Industry written by William Davies and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In winter 2014, a Tibetan monk lectured the world leaders gathered at Davos on the importance of Happiness. The recent DSM-5, the manual of all diagnosable mental illnesses, for the first time included shyness and grief as treatable diseases. Happiness has become the biggest idea of our age, a new religion dedicated to well-being. In this brilliant dissection of our times, political economist William Davies shows how this philosophy, first pronounced by Jeremy Bentham in the 1780s, has dominated the political debates that have delivered neoliberalism. From a history of business strategies of how to get the best out of employees, to the increased level of surveillance measuring every aspect of our lives; from why experts prefer to measure the chemical in the brain than ask you how you are feeling, to why Freakonomics tells us less about the way people behave than expected, The Happiness Industry is an essential guide to the marketization of modern life. Davies shows that the science of happiness is less a science than an extension of hyper-capitalism.
Download or read book The Political Economy of Work written by David Spencer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-09-25 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a new and unique assessment of the theoretical analysis of work, challenging some common preconceptions and promoting an original approach to the field, contemplating its nature, development and its impact on human well-being.
Download or read book An Inquiry into the principles of the Distribution of Wealth most conducive to human happiness applied to the newly proposed system of voluntary equality of wealth written by William THOMPSON (Writer on Political Economy.) and published by . This book was released on 1850 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Measuring Happiness written by Joachim Weimann and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-02-06 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can money buy happiness? Is income a reliable measure for life satisfaction? In this book, three economists explore the happiness-prosperity connection, investigating how economists measure life satisfaction and well-being. --
Download or read book The Origins of Happiness written by Andrew E. Clark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new perspective on life satisfaction and well-being over the life course What makes people happy? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human priorities and to promote public policy changes that are based on what really matters to people. Drawing on a range of evidence using large-scale data from various countries, the authors consider the key factors that affect human well-being, including income, education, employment, family conflict, health, childcare, and crime. The Origins of Happiness offers a groundbreaking new vision for how we might become more healthy, happy, and whole.
Download or read book The Happiness Industry written by William Davies and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was a Buddhist monk doing at the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos lecturing the world's leaders on mindfulness? Why do many successful corporations have a 'chief happiness officer'? What can the chemical composition of your brain tell a potential employer about you? In the past decade, governments and corporations have become increasingly interested in measuring the way people feel: 'the Happiness index', 'Gross National Happiness', 'well-being' and positive psychology have come to dominate the way we live our lives. As a result, our emotions have become a new resource to be bought and sold. In a fascinating investigation combining history, science and ideas, William Davies shows how well-being influences all aspects of our lives: business, finance, marketing and smart technology. This book will make you rethink everything from the way you work, the power of the 'Nudge', the ever-expanding definitions of depression, and the commercialization of your most private feelings. The Happiness Industry is a shocking and brilliantly argued warning about the new religion of the age: our emotions.
Download or read book An Inquiry Into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness written by William Thompson and published by . This book was released on 1850 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Taxation and the Promotion of Human Happiness written by George Warde Norman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition of a hitherto unknown work demonstrates the importance of utilitarianism to liberal thinking on taxation. As such, this unique book will appeal to specialists in the history of economic thought and to historians, especially those with an interest in the history of public finance, an area in which G.W. Norman's contribution has been almost entirely overlooked.
Download or read book A Modern Guide to the Economics of Happiness written by Luigino Bruni and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-29 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the modern approach to the economics of happiness, which came about with the Easterlin Paradox, this book analyses and assesses the idea that as a country gets richer the happiness of its citizens remains the same. The book moves through three distinct pillars of study in the field: first analysing the historical and philosophical foundations of the debate; then the methodological and measurements issues and their political implications; and finally empirical applications and discussion about what determines a happy life.
