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Type	Working Paper
Scope	Discipline-based scholarship
Title	Do People Seek to Maximize Their Subjective Well‐Being?
Organization Unit	Economics of Child and Youth Development (Hannes Schwandt)
Authors	Marc Fleurbaey Hannes Schwandt
Language	English
Institution	University of Zurich
Series Name	IZA Discussion Paper
Number	9450
Date	2015
Abstract Text	In a new survey we ask respondents, after a standard Subjective Well‐Being (SWB) question, if they can think of changes in their lives that would improve their SWB score. If the SWB score is just one argument among others in the respondents’ goals in life, they should easily find ways to improve it, at the expense of other dimensions they care about. Our results suggest that close to 90% of the respondents actually seek to maximize their SWB. The life satisfaction question appears the best contender as the “maximand” in the contest, before the ladder‐of‐life question and felt happiness. Among the other goals that people pursue and for which they are willing to sacrifice some of their SWB, the prominent appear to be about their relatives and about their future self.
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