Contents
List of contributors viii
Introduction Luigino Bruni and Pier Luigi Porta xi
PART I LESSONS FROM THE PAST
1 Happiness, wealth and utility in ancient thought 3
Gloria Vivenza
2 The ‘technology of happiness’ and the tradition
of economic science 24
Luigino Bruni
3 Human needs hierarchy and happiness: evidence
from the late pre-classical and classical economics 53
Stravos Drakopoulos and Anastasios Karayiannis
4 Jeremy Bentham’s quantitative analysis of happiness
and its asymmetries 68
Marco E.L. Guidi
5 Public happiness and civil society 95
Pier Luigi Porta and Roberto Scazzieri
6 Kant on civilization, moralization and the paradox
of happiness 110
Sergio Cremaschi
PART II UNDERSTANDING THE PARADOX
OF HAPPINESS
7 If happiness is so important, why do we know so little about it? 127
Marina Bianchi
8 Well-being and consumption: towards a theoretical
approach based on human needs satisfaction 151
Monica Guillen Royo
9 Enjoyment of life, the structure of time and economic
dynamics 170
Mario Cogoy
10 Experienced versus decision utility of income: relative
or absolute happiness 185
Maarten Vendrik and Johannes Hirata
v
11 Past product experiences as determinants of happiness
with target product experiences: implications for
subjective well-being 209
Rajagopal Raghunathan and Julie R. Irwin
12 The life plan view of happiness and the
paradoxes of happiness 221
Mark Chekola
PART III RELATIONAL GOODS
13 The income–unhappiness paradox: a relational goods/Baumol
disease explanation 239
Leonardo Becchetti and Marika Santoro
14 The subjective well-being paradox: a suggested solution
based on relational goods 263
Maurizio Pugno
15 The not-so-fragile fragility of goodness: the responsive
quality of fiduciary relationships 290
Vittorio Pelligra
16 Happiness, morality and game theory 318
Luca Zarri
17 Why are people so unhappy? Why do they strive so
hard for money? Competing explanations of the
broken promises of economic growth 337
Stefano Bartolini
18 On the demand for grandchildren: tied transfers
and the demonstration effect 365
Donald Cox and Oded Stark
PART IV DATA AND POLICIES
19 Values and happiness in Mexico: the case of the
metropolitan city of Monterrey 407
Jose de Jesus Garcia, Nicole Christa Fuentes, Salvador
A. Borrego, Monica D. Gutierrez and Alejandro Tapia
20 Happiness, satisfaction and socioeconomic
conditions: some international evidence 429
Amado Peiró
21 Happiness and the standard of living: the case
of South Africa 447
Nattavudh Powdthavee
vi Handbook on the economics of happiness
22 Federalism versus social citizenship: investigating
the preference for equity in health care 487
Luca Crivelli, Gianfranco Domenighetti and Massimo Filippini
23 Happiness and sustainability: a modern paradox 512
Silva Marzetti Dall’Aste Brandolini
24 Ideals, conformism and reciprocity: a model of
individual choice with conformist motivations,
and an application to the not-for-profit case 532
Lorenzo Sacconi and Gianluca Grimalda