Methodological review reveals that subjective well-being captures human welfare beyond income and choice data, highlighting its essential role in public decision-making.
Why should economists take subjective well-being seriously? This article argues that subjective well-being provides information about human welfare that cannot be recovered from income, production, or observed choices alone. It reviews evidence on the validity of subjective well-being measures, summarizes their contributions to economic knowledge and public decision-making, and examines the main conceptual and methodological challenges facing the field. The aim is both to explain why subjective well-being belongs in economics and to highlight promising directions for future research.
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Francesco Sarracino (2026) studied this question.
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