Modern happiness research has produced a wealth of evidence on the relationship between economic conditions and life satisfaction. This book provides an interpretation of this evidence and shows that it can be understood with the help of a handful of psychological and economic effects.

Despite decades of empirical happiness research, there is still little evidence for the positive effect of economic growth on life satisfaction. This poses a major challenge to welfare economic theory and to normative conceptions of socio-economic development. This book endeavours to explain these findings and to make sense of their ethical implications. While most of the existing literature on empirical happiness research is ultimately interested in understanding how to improve human lives and societal development, the ethical backdrop against which these findings are evaluated is rarely...