Creativity, well-being and economic development: an evolutionary approach (Journal of Evolutionary Economics 2024)

Economic development requires endogenous novelties, according to evolutionary economics. To find the endogenous source of novelties, we focus on the creativity of ordinary people when they craft their life path. We argue that such ‘life creativity’ is endogenous to the economic system because it is a typical capability of human beings, because it is intrinsically motivated, thus directly yielding well-being, and because it can be developed with better economic conditions. The paper first introduces the insights of three pioneers of evolutionary economics, it proceeds by showing the key role of creativity in human evolution, and then it proposes ‘creative activity’ as an input-output technology that is both useful for and conditioned by economic development. It concludes by contrasting the Industrial Revolution in Britain with the ICT revolution in the US for their different effects of successful innovations on life creativity and well-being.

Social media effects on well-being: the hypothesis of addiction of a new variety (Kyklos 2024)

Recent evidence shows that social media use has negative effects on well-being of children and youths. However, the underlying reasons are unclear, as social media are means that can also serve beneficial purposes. We propose the hypothesis that social media induce users to harmful addiction of a new variety because such use is not toxic per se, but becomes toxic by crowding out beneficial activities. We identify, in particular, the key mechanism in the change of time preference: while social media induce users to present-biased activities, thus encouraged by how platforms are designed, they crowd out activities that develop skills and are forward-looking, such as education, volunteering and democratic participation. This triggers a vicious circle leading to a long run deterioration of well-being and skills that would have acted as an antidote to addiction. As implication, policies should address adequate information and education in general, as well as increased competition in the digital platform market. While the available evidence supports our hypothesis in many respects, more empirical research is needed.