Purpose 2
Imagine doing anything without a purpose. Imagine starting a new business without having any idea about what to sell. Or one step further, imagine running a business without even having the goal of producing and selling products in the first place. What would the economy look like if all companies behaved purposelessly? Probably similar to […]
Cleaning out anger
In my view, happiness is a state of mind. It is the background noise in the brain and the lenses through which we perceive the outside world. Other states of mind could be filled with everything from peace and harmony to anger or sadness. When I am happy, it doesn’t really matter whether I am […]
Expectations
When William Shakespeare wrote Juliet saying “rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, he implied that people, roses, and other things have absolute values that provide us with pleasure independently of how we frame them with names. I am skeptical. I am currently studying how expectations affect the utility people receive from certain […]
When are people happiest
In health economics, some measurements and evaluations of healthcare policies implicitly assume people are happiest around the age of 25. This means that a policy that saves the life of someone who has already experienced their 20s is worth less than a policy that saves the life of a child. I wonder when people actually […]
Relative social status
The human motive to pursue relative social status is widely recognized within and beyond academia, but there is still room to integrate it further with economic theory. Status-seeking seems to have implications on labor supply and could explain why people tend to work the same amount across time, regions, and income levels. There are many […]
Achieving happiness through low expectations
Today, when I was visiting potential apartments to move into in Barcelona, I thought about which one I should choose and tried to figure out what properties of an apartment are valuable over time, and what gimmicks will do I overestimate the value of and normalize quickly. The extended thought is whether it is possible […]
The Effortless Happiness
How come life seems to come so easy and effortless to some people? Watching others pursuing life comfortably with ease, seemingly in absence of hard work and sacrifices, may bring envious feelings. Especially if you yourself keep struggling despite the great efforts to keep on fighting every single day. Living happily at ease without the […]