Frey, B. S. (1994). Supreme auditing institutions: a politico-economic analysis. European Journal of Law and Economics, 1(3), 169-176.

While the beneficial aspects of a public accounting office’s activity are not disputed here, it is argued in this article that four major distortions are produced: the concern with administrative rationality overlooks costs elsewhere (Section 2); budgetary aspects are overvalued compared to other issues (Section 3); incentives-oriented behavior is suppressed (Section 4); and the evaluation is biased by concentrating on minor, instead of major, aspects of inefficiency (Section 5). Section 6 considers alternatives to public accounting offices and makes some suggestions for new institutional arrangements particularly for constitutional rules.

 

 

Frey, B. S. (1994). Supreme auditing institutions: a politico-economic analysis. European Journal of Law and Economics, 1(3), 169-176.

https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01552468

 

Layard, R. (2006). Happiness and public policy: A challenge to the profession. The Economic Journal, 116(510), C24-C33.

 

The theory behind public economics needs radical reform. It fails to explain the recent history of human welfare and it ignores some of the key findings of modern psychology. Indeed these two failings are intimately linked: it is because the theory ignores psychology that it is unable to explain the facts.


 The fact is that, despite massive increases in purchasing power, people in the West are no happier than they were fifty years ago. We know this from population surveys and other supporting evidence which I shall review.

 

The most obvious explanations come from three standard findings of the new psychology of happiness.1 First, a person’s happiness is negatively affected by the incomes of others (a negative externality). Second, a person’s happiness adapts quite rapidly to higher levels of income (a phenomenon of addiction). And third, our tastes are not given – the happiness we get from what we have is largely culturally determined.

 

These findings provide a challenge to the theory and conclusions of public economics, as set out for example in Atkinson and Stiglitz (1980). The challenge to public economics is to incorporate the findings of modern psychology while retaining the rigour of the cost–benefit framework which is the strength and glory of our subject.2 In what follows I shall first review the measurement of happiness. Then I shall take the three findings that I discussed one by one, and pursue the policy implications of each of them. I shall end with some overall reflections.
 

 

 

Layard, R. (2006). Happiness and public policy: A challenge to the profession. The Economic Journal, 116(510), C24-C33.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2006.01073.x

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D. A., Schwarz, N., &Stone, A. A. (2004). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The day reconstruction method. Science, 306(5702), 1776-1780.

The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) assesses how people spend their time and how they experience the various activities and settings of their lives, combining features of time-budget measurement and experience sampling. Participants systematically reconstruct their activities and experiences of the preceding day with procedures designed to reduce recall biases. The DRM’s utility is shown by documenting close correspondences between the DRM reports of 909 employed women and established results from experience sampling. An analysis of the hedonic treadmill shows the DRM’s potential for well-being research.

 

 

 

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D. A., Schwarz, N., &Stone, A. A. (2004). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The day reconstruction method. Science, 306(5702), 1776-1780.

DOI: 10.1126/science.1103572

 

Easterlin, R. A. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In Nations and households in economic growth(pp. 89-125).

This chapter discusses the association of income and happiness. The basic data consist of statements by individuals on their subjective happiness, as reported in thirty surveys from 1946 through 1970, covering nineteen countries, including eleven in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Within countries, there is a noticeable positive association between income and happiness—in every single survey, those in the highest status group were happier, on the average, than those in the lowest status group. However, whether any such positive association exists among countries at a given time is uncertain. Certainly, the happiness differences between rich and poor countries that one might expect on the basis of the within-country differences by economic status are not borne out by the international data. Similarly, in the one national time series studied, for the United States since 1946, higher income was not systematically accompanied by greater happiness. As for why national comparisons among countries and over time show an association between income and happiness that is so much weaker than, if not inconsistent with, that shown by within-country comparisons, a Duesenberry-type model, involving relative status considerations as an important determinant of happiness, is suggested.

 

 

Easterlin, R. A. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In Nations and households in economic growth(pp. 89-125).

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-205050-3.50008-7

 

Brück, T., &Stephan, A. (2006). Do Eurozone countries cheat with their budget deficit forecasts?. Kyklos, 59(1), 3-15.

 

SUMMARY

 

The authors assess the political economy determinants of budget deficit forecast errors. Their econometric analysis indicates that Eurozone governments have manipulated deficit forecasts before elections since the introduction of the Stability and Growth Pact. The left‐right position and the institutional design of governments also affect the quality of deficit forecasts.

 

 

Brück, T., &Stephan, A. (2006). Do Eurozone countries cheat with their budget deficit forecasts?. Kyklos, 59(1), 3-15.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6435.2006.00317.x

Blanchflower, D. G., &Oswald, A. J. (2004). Well-being over time in Britain and the USA. Journal of public economics, 88(7-8), 1359-1386.

 

This paper studies happiness in the United States and Great Britain. Reported levels of well-being have declined over the last quarter of a century in the US; life satisfaction has run approximately flat through time in Britain. These findings are consistent with the Easterlin hypothesis [Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honour of Moses Abramowitz (1974) Academic Press; J. Econ. Behav. Org., 27 (1995) 35]. The happiness of American blacks, however, has risen. White women in the US have been the biggest losers since the 1970s. Well-being equations have a stable structure. Money buys happiness. People care also about relative income. Well-being is U-shaped in age. The paper estimates the dollar values of events like unemployment and divorce. They are large. A lasting marriage (compared to widowhood as a ‘natural’ experiment), for example, is estimated to be worth $100,000 a year.

 

 

Blanchflower, D. G., &Oswald, A. J. (2004). Well-being over time in Britain and the USA. Journal of public economics, 88(7-8), 1359-1386.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2727(02)00168-8

Kahneman, D. (1994). New challenges to the rationality assumption. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE)/Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, 18-36.

초록 없음

 

 

Kahneman, D. (1994). New challenges to the rationality assumption. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE)/Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, 18-36.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40753012

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

In this article, the author describes a new theoretical perspective on positive emotions and situates this in perspective within the emerging field of positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory posits that experience of positive emotions broaden people’s momentary thought–action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources. Preliminary empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory is reviewed, and open empirical questions that remain to be tested are identified. The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing.

 


Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218-226.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218