The Political Economy of Human Happiness: How Voters' Choices Determine the Quality of Life

摘要

Ben Radcliff's book is a deep and thought-provoking piece of work with a strong Sense of history, if not always an easy read. The book's first objective is to demonstrate the revolutionary nature of Jefferson's proposal-most famously phrased in the Declaration of Independence-that all citizens have the right to the pursuit of happiness. The second objective of the book is to marshal the metrics from the new "science" of well-being (a more encompassing concept than happiness, which also includes it) to assess how well modern polities are doing at giving their citizens the opportunity to fulfill that right. These metrics are increasingly being used by economists and other social scientists to address a range of questions.