Economics of Well-being

Originally, economics was not detached from happiness and dealt with situations of resource abundance. Over time, the discipline has progressively re-focused on states of resource scarcity. Some historians label this shift as the turning of economics into a ‘sad science.’ This course reconnects economics to issues of individual and collective well-being and happiness, from both a theoretical and a policy perspective. This course aims at addressing modern understandings of the definition, measurement, and determinants of subjective well-being and their implications for policy, growth, and the environment. The approach taken will reflect the preexisting treatment of welfare in economics as well as that of the field topics that the subjective well-being literature has addressed.