Teaching happiness (economics) in your dismal-science courses

Kristen B. Cooper; Ori Heffetz; John Ifcher; Ekaterina Oparina; Stephen Wu

doi:10.1080/00220485.2026.2613843

Teaching happiness (economics) in your dismal-science courses

Kristen B. Cooper
, Ori Heffetz
, John Ifcher
, Ekaterina Oparina
, Stephen Wu^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The authors of this article discuss ideas for incorporating the study of happiness and other measures of self-reported or subjective well-being (SWB) into undergraduate economics courses. They begin by motivating why economics students would benefit from learning about SWB, and then proceed to provide examples of ways to introduce this topic into different parts of the curriculum: macroeconomics, microeconomics, and upper-division electives.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Economic Education
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/00220485.2026.2613843
State	Accepted/In press - 2026
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Keywords

Happiness
pedagogy
subjective well-being
undergraduate curriculum

Access to Document

10.1080/00220485.2026.2613843

Cite this

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abstract = "The authors of this article discuss ideas for incorporating the study of happiness and other measures of self-reported or subjective well-being (SWB) into undergraduate economics courses. They begin by motivating why economics students would benefit from learning about SWB, and then proceed to provide examples of ways to introduce this topic into different parts of the curriculum: macroeconomics, microeconomics, and upper-division electives.",

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AB - The authors of this article discuss ideas for incorporating the study of happiness and other measures of self-reported or subjective well-being (SWB) into undergraduate economics courses. They begin by motivating why economics students would benefit from learning about SWB, and then proceed to provide examples of ways to introduce this topic into different parts of the curriculum: macroeconomics, microeconomics, and upper-division electives.

KW - Happiness

KW - pedagogy

KW - subjective well-being

KW - undergraduate curriculum

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Teaching happiness (economics) in your dismal-science courses

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

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