Happiness in retrospect and prospect

Subjective well-being research has produced many valuable insights concerning the determinants of, as well as the consequences on, happiness. It is argued that the causality issue involved should be dealt with in a more pragmatic way than is now the case. Various reasons are proposed why happiness research has only partially been integrated into standard economics. The insights provided by happiness research should be introduced as one element in the democratic political discourse. In future, care should be taken not to swamp the main messages of happiness research by ever more refined and detailed analyses. Various fruitful research topics are suggested; most importantly, the institutional and constitutional ones, the sociological determinants of happiness, as well as the impact of violent political conflict. Future research topics should come from issues in the real world rather than from problems mainly of interest within the research community.