IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jhisec/v26y2004i01p19-44_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The “Technology of Happiness” and the Tradition of Economic Science

Author

Listed:
  • Bruni, Luigino

Abstract

It is a matter of fact that happiness is once again one of the foci of interest for economists, the “professors of the dismal science” (Carlyle 1850, p. 43). This is also the conviction of the editor of the “Controversy” on Economics and Happiness in The Economic Journal in 1997: “Economists from different backgrounds … all believe that happiness must play a more central role in economic science once again” (Dixon 1997, p. 1812). Dixon's thesis is twofold: (a) “Once again”: the reference is to the Neapolitan pubblica felicita (public happiness), developedby Genovesi andothers in the mid-1700s. In fact, Dixon sees a link between the new interest on happiness by contemporary economists andthe XVIII century debate on “public happiness” in the Latin countries, and in Italy in particular, as he explicitly says in a footnote; (b) “More central role” according to Dixon, is that happiness nowadays does not play a central role in economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruni, Luigino, 2004. "The “Technology of Happiness” and the Tradition of Economic Science," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 19-44, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:26:y:2004:i:01:p:19-44_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1053837200008579/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Drakopoulos, Stavros A. & Karayiannis, Anastassios, 2007. "The Paradox of Happiness: Evidence from the Late Pre-Classical and Classical Economic Thought," MPRA Paper 71657, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Jenny Assi & Mario Lucchini & Amedeo Spagnolo, 2012. "Mapping patterns of well-being and quality of life in extended Europe," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 59(4), pages 409-430, December.
    3. Bruni, Luigino & Stanca, Luca, 2008. "Watching alone: Relational goods, television and happiness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 506-528, March.
    4. Nicola Matteucci & Sabrina Vieira Lima, 2016. "Women and happiness," Chapters, in: Luigino Bruni & Pier Luigi Porta (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Happiness and Quality of Life, chapter 19, pages 419-447, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Matías Membiela-Pollán & María Alló-Pazos & Carlos Pateiro-Rodríguez & Félix Blázquez-Lozano, 2019. "The Inefficiency of the Neoclassical Paradigm in the Promotion of Subjective Well-Being and Socioeconomic, and Environmental Sustainability: An Empirical Test for the Spanish Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-14, December.
    6. Gabriel Leite Mota, 2007. "Why Should Happiness Have a Role in Welfare Economics? Happiness versus Orthodoxy and Capabilities," FEP Working Papers 253, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    7. Drakopoulos, Stavros, 2011. "Hierarchical Needs, Income Comparisons and Happiness Levels," MPRA Paper 48343, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Gabriel Leite Mota, 2022. "Unsatisfying ordinalism: The breach through which happiness (re)entered economics," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 513-528, June.
    9. van de Wetering, E.J. & van Exel, N.J.A. & Brouwer, W.B.F., 2010. "Piecing the jigsaw puzzle of adolescent happiness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 923-935, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:26:y:2004:i:01:p:19-44_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/het .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.