[xorbie]

As to hmkpoker, interesting topic. Let's consider something else instead of happiness. Say a bunch of coal companies are doing something bad for the environment. One may say that the research focus of economics is not the environment (perhaps until someone has to pay to clean it up, and which point it can be quantized). Fair enough. This does not mean that economics of coal mining should be considered entirely seperate from the environmental effects, it simply means that something beyond the economics of the situation needs be analyzed.

So, if you want to say that the study of happiness is outside the realm of economics, it doesn't really bother me much. Either economics itself must incorporate these findings or we must turn outside the field. Either way, I think this is a very important issue to be adressed.

You of course would reply that it ought to be adressed, but at a personal level. I agree more or less, although I'd say it's certainly an inter-personal issue in that we need to become aware as a society of this.