Four essays in welfare economics

The PhD thesis consists of four papers on welfare economics: 1) “The Social Consequences of Economic Growth: the Relationship Between Real Household Income and Self-Declared Tolerance” (with Leonardo Becchetti and Fiammetta Rossetti), CEIS Working Paper No. 254; 2) “The Impact of Real Estate and Stock Market Fluctuations on Human Well-Being”, CEIS Working Paper No. 252; 3) “Education and Happiness: a Further Explanation to the Easterlin Paradox?”, CEIS Working Paper No. 246; 4) “The Effects of Age and Job Protection on the Welfare Costs of Inflation and Unemployment” (with Leonardo Becchetti and Osea Giuntella), CEIS Working Paper No. 245. The first investigates the relationship between income growth and tolerance towards immigrants, while the others make use of happiness data to investigate the relevance of some economic variables for human wellbeing. The second paper shows that real estate fluctuations are more important that stock market ones and that increases in house prices have a short-term positive effect but a long-term negative one. The third shows that education affects the importance people attach to absolute income and can contribute to explain the Easterlin Paradox. The last paper shows that countries with higher job protection and average age are more aware of inflation than of unemployment.