Policies for Happiness

by Bartolini, Stefano; Bilancini, Ennio; Bruni, Luigino; Porta, Pier Luigi

• ISBN13: 9780198758730
• ISBN10: 0198758731
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-05-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Stefano Bartolini, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Siena,Ennio Bilancini, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,Luigino Bruni, Professor of Economics, Universita LUMSA Rome,Pier Luigi Porta, Full professor, University of Milano-Bicocca

Stefano Bartolini is associate professor of Economics at the University of Siena and is the author of several articles published in international journals. He has worked with the World Bank and the OECD, and he has organized international conferences, including Policies for Happiness (Siena, June 2007) and Once Upon a Time There was the Future (Florence, January 2015). His research focusses on whether it is possible to reconcile a better quality of our environment, relationships, and well-being with economic prosperity.


Ennio Bilancini is associate professor of economics at the Marco Biagi Economics Department at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE). In 2007 he obtained his PhD in economics from the University of Siena. His research is on the intersection of economics and psychology, with a special focus on strategic behaviour, cognition, and well-being. He has taught courses in microeconomics, industrial organisation, behavioural economics, game theory, and the history of the Economic Thought at UNIMORE and at the University of Pisa. He has published papers in scientific journals such as European Economic Review, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, and Social Indicators Research.


Luigino Bruni is Professor of Economics at the Lumsa University (Rome). He earned a PhD in the history of economics at the University of Florence in Italy in 1998 and a PhD in economics at the University of East Anglia in 2006. His research interests include microeconomics, ethics and economics, history of economic thought, economic methodology, sociality and happiness, and economics and theology. His most recent work examines the civil economy, reciprocity, gift, and the role of intrinsic motivation in economic and civil life. His English-language books include Reciprocity, Altruism and Civil Society (Routledge, 2008); Handbook on The Economics of Happiness (edited with P. Porta, Elgar, 2007); Civil Economy (with S. Zamagni, Verlag Peter Lang, 2007); Civil Happiness (Routledge, 2006); The Genesis and Ethos of the Market (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012); and The Wound and the Blessing (Newcity, 2012).


Pier Luigi Porta is Professor of economics at the University of Milano-Bicocca. For ten years he was the Director of the Department of Economics at Bicocca, and a member of the Senate and of the Board of the University. A former research student at the University of Cambridge, he is now a Member of Christ's College and a Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College at Cambridge. He is a life member of the Istituto Lombardo-Accademia di Scienze e Lettere at Brera and a former member of the Executive of the Italian Economic Society. He is the Editor-in-chief of the International Review of Economics and has taught in a number of academic institutions in Italy and abroad. He has published over one hundred and fifty papers and several volumes including Economics and Happiness (co-edited with L. Bruni, Oxford University Press, 2007), and Structural Dynamics and Economic Growth ( co-edited with R. Arena, Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Table of Contents

Introduction, Stefano Bartolini, Ennio Bilancini, Luigino Bruni, and Pierluigi Porta
Part 1. Should Happiness Research Be Taken Seriously For Policy-Making Purposes?
1. Policy Consequences of Happiness Research, Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer
2. Is Happiness A Matter For Governments? A Millian perspective on Richard Layard's 'New Science', Robert Sugden and Joshua Chen-Yuan Teng
3. Comment on 'Is Happiness A Matter For Governments?' by Robert Sugden and Joshua Chen-Yuan Teng, Richard Layard
4. Happiness, Habits and High Rank: Comparisons in Economic and Social Life, Andrew Clark
5. Adaptation Amidst Prosperity and Adversity: Insights from Happiness Studies from Around the World, Carol Graham
Part 2. Which Policies, since Happiness Research has to be taken Seriously? Targeting Social Capital, Values, and Education
6. Materialistic Values and Well-being: Problems and Policy, Tim Kasser
7. Life Satisfaction and Quality of Development, John F. Helliwell
8. Social Capital Predicts Happiness Over Time: World-Wide Evidence Form Time Series, Stefano Bartolini, Ennio Bilancini, and Francesco Sarracino
9. Promoting Trust through Institutional Design, Vittorio Pelligra
10. Why Policies for Children, Early Education, and Culture? Drawing on Scitovsky's Thought, Maurizio Pugno
Part 3. From the Past to the Present
11. Civil Economy: The Paradigm and its Historical Roots, Pier Luigi Porta
12. Public Happiness And Relational Goods: That Crucial Link that Economics and Policy often Forget, Luigino Bruni