Happiness Quantified: A Satisfaction Calculus Approach

ISBN: 0198286546

Author: van Praag, Bernard

Condition: New

How do we measure happiness? This important and long-awaited book presents a new and unified approach to the analysis of subjective satisfaction and income evaluation. Drawing on empirical analyses of German, British, Dutch, and Russian data, it develops new methodology to establish a model of well-being which includes satisfaction with life as a whole and with various domains of life. This method is applied to study individual and collective norms, to construct family-equivalence scales, to estimate health damages, compensation for externalities, and the construction of tax tariffs, and to define subjective inequalities with respect to well-being, income, and other domains of life. Written for a wide readership of social scientists, the book presents a theoretical and empirical breakthrough into a new and fruitful methodology in the social sciences.