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Abstract

The role of money in producing sustained subjective well-being seems to be seriously compromised by social comparisons and habituation. But does that necessarily mean that we would be better off doing something else instead? This paper suggests that the phenomena of comparison and habituation are actually found in a variety of economic and social activities, rendering conclusions regarding well-being policy less straightforward.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by HAL in its series Working Papers with number halshs-00586049.

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Date of creation: Nov 2008
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Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00586049

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Related research

Keywords: comparison ; habituation ; income ; unemployment ; marriage ; divorce ; health ; religion ; policy;

References

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Cited by:

1. Andrew E. Clark & Fabrice Etilé, 2010. "Happy house: Spousal weight and individual well-being," Working Papers halshs-00564836, HAL.

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