The ‘Happiness transformation problem’ in the Cambridge tradition

Abstract

The paper claims that in the leaders of the Cambridge tradition of economics the issue of the ‘happiness transformation problem’, i.e. how wealth becomes well-being, was a central point. In particular, the author shows that from Malthus to Pigou this economic tradition paid special attention to non-economic domains important for human happiness and that are affected by market choices. Marshall is seen as the bridge between the classical reflection on happiness in the eighteenth century and the recent debates on the ‘paradoxes of happiness’, an issue that is becoming more and more important, not only in moral philosophy, but also in economics.