Evolutionary efficiency and happiness

Abstract

We model happiness as a measurement tool used to rank alternative actions. Evolution favors a happiness function that measures the individual’s success in relative terms. The optimal function, in particular, is based on a time-varying reference point –or performance benchmark –that is updated over time in a statistically optimal way in order to match the individual’s potential. Habits and peer comparisons arise as special cases of such updating process. This updating also results in a volatile level of happiness that continuously reverts to its long-term mean. Throughout, we draw a parallel with a problem of optimal incentives, which allows us to apply statistical insights from agency theory to the study of happiness.

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Citations of this work

The importance of what people care about.Marc Fleurbaey - 2012 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 11 (4):415-447.
Recent advances in the economics of individual subjective well-being.Alois Stutzer & Bruno S. Frey - 2010 - Social Research: An International Quarterly 77 (2):679-714.

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