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Joyful Economists: Remarks on the History of Economics And Joyful economists : remarks on the history of economics and psychology from the happiness studies perspective José Miguel Edwards To cite this version: José Miguel Edwards. Joyful economists : remarks on the history of economics and psychology from the happiness studies perspective. Economics and Finance. Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, 2009. English. tel-00486771 HAL Id: tel-00486771 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00486771 Submitted on 26 May 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIVERSITE PARIS I – PANTHEON-SORBONNE SCIENCES ECONOMIQUES – SCIENCES HUMAINES – SCIENCES JURIDIQUES ET POLITIQUES Année 2009 N° attribué par la bibliothèque |2|0|0|9|P|A|0|1|0|0|6|3| JOYFUL ECONOMISTS REMARKS ON THE HISTORY OF ECONOMICS AND PSYCHOLOGY FROM THE HAPPINESS STUDIES PERSPECTIVE Thèse pour l’obtention du doctorat en sciences économiques (Arrêté du 30 mars 1992) Présentée et soutenue publiquement le 14 décembre 2009 par José M. EDWARDS Directeur de recherche : Mme. Annie L. Cot, professeur à l’Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne Membres du Jury : Mme. Annie L. Cot, professeur à l’Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne M. Richard Arena, professeur à l’Université de Nice, rapporteur M. Philippe Fontaine, professeur à l’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan M. Jérôme Gautié, professeur à l’Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, président M. D. Wade Hands, professor, University of Puget Sound, rapporteur M. Harro Maas, associate professor, University of Amsterdam L’Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne n’entend donner aucune approbation ni improbation aux opinions émises dans cette thèse. Ces opinions doivent être considérées comme propres à leur auteur. PREFACE The following is a revised version of the dissertation examined December 14, 2009 at the Maison des Sciences Économiques of the University of Paris I. I am deeply thankful of professor Annie L. Cot, the supervisor of this project, and of the Jury composed by professors Annie L. Cot, Richard Arena, Philippe Fontaine, Jérôme Gautié, D. Wade Hands and Harro Maas for supporting it, as well as for their valuable remarks and comments. Professors Richard Arena and D. Wade Hands provided written reports prior to the final examination, of which professor Jérôme Gautié was the president. This version contains minor revisions throughout the script, some minor changes in the transitions between the chapters, and substantial changes in the third section of the introductory chapter and in the general conclusion. I must thank Richard Arena for his valuable comments on these parts of the dissertation. The main aim of modifying these parts was to further insist on the change of perspective between Part I of the dissertation on one hand, and Parts II and III on the other. I also added the five-minute-pause page of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony between Parts I and II (and a brief explanation of this inclusion) in order to remind the reader of the important shift at that point in the dissertation. I must thank Harro Maas for suggesting the unexpected (though welcomed) analogy between the structure of Mahler’s great piece of music and that of this modest work on the history of economics and psychology. I must also thank Kendra Walker for reading the modified parts, as well as Parts I and II of the previous version of the script, for this substantially improved the quality of the writing (which can be verified by comparing them to Part III). I am naturally the only one responsible of the numerous errors remaining. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the product of four years of research work and discussion in the subfield of the history of economics. The whole dissertation project has been repeatedly presented and discussed in the Albert O. Hirschman (AOH) seminar organized in Paris by professors Annie L. Cot and Jérôme Lallement. I am very thankful to them and to all of the other participants of the AOH seminar. Early versions of chapters 1, 3, and 4 were presented at the 34th, 35th and 36th meetings of the History of Economics Society (HES) and supported by the young scholar program of the HES. I benefited from useful reports and comments by, or discussions with, Mary S. Morgan, D. Wade Hands, André Van Hoorn, Floris Heukelom, Harro Maas, Neil Nimand, and Pedro Duarte. Chapters 3, 5 and 6 are now the result of extensive discussions on papers presented at the 2nd and 3rd conferences on the History of Recent Economics (HISRECO). I am also very thankful to the participants of these conferences: Philippe Fontaine, Roger Backhouse, Tiago Mata and Guido Erreygers (the organizers), and D. Wade Hands, Dan Hammond, Evelyn Forget, Marcel Boumans, Ross Emmett, Edward Nik-Khah and Steven Medema for their comments, which positively influenced this dissertation. First versions of papers that became chapters 3, 5 and 6 were presented in the 10th and 11th Summer Institutes on Economic History, Philosophy, and History of Economic Thought in France. An early version of chapter 3 was also presented at a session of the Atelier de Philosophie et Économie (PHARE). Financial and institutional support was granted by the University of Paris I (Allocation de Recherche, Monitorat, ATER), GRESE, PHARE, and the École Doctorale d’Économie Panthéon-Sorbonne. TABLE OF CONTENTS GENERAL INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 11 A History of Economics and Psychology from the Happiness Studies Perspective .......................................... 11 0.1. The Economics of Happiness as a “viewpoint” ..................................................................................... 11 0.2. Two normative and one standard reconstruction ................................................................................ 14 0.2.1. Happiness: in, out, back ................................................................................................................ 15 0.2.2. Psychology: in, out, back ............................................................................................................... 19 0.2.3. Preconceptions against the use of subjective data ....................................................................... 22 0.3. An alternative reconstruction ............................................................................................................... 25 0.3.1. The economics of happiness: early and recent ............................................................................. 26 0.3.2. Remarks on the history of economics and experimental psychology ........................................... 31 0.3.3. The economic analysis of subjective outcomes ............................................................................ 38 0.4. Summing up .......................................................................................................................................... 43 I. THE ECONOMICS OF HAPPINESS ........................................................................................... 45 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 1. 1974-1999: Economics for the Affluent, Happiness for the Satisfied ........................................ 49 1.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 49 1.2. Discovering happiness data and introducing the happiness paradox ................................................... 50 1.3. The joylessness of the satisfied ............................................................................................................. 53 1.4. From the economics of affluence to the economics of happiness ....................................................... 57 1.5. Happiness and economic policy: Layard (1980) .................................................................................... 65 1.6. An overview of the literature and the main subjects of the period: a conclusion ................................ 68 Chapter 2. 1999-2009: Making Happiness an Economic Subject ............................................................... 73 2.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 73 2.2. Hedonic Psychology: an overview ......................................................................................................... 75 2.3. Hedonic psychologists and “objective happiness” ................................................................................ 78 2.4. Joyful economists and life satisfaction .................................................................................................. 82 2.5. Joyful economists in numbers ............................................................................................................... 84 2.6. Joyful economists and the happiness paradox ....................................................................................
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