 A hotly debated question is what to make of this approach in welfare economics. There is a wide variety of positions, from those who propose to measure and maximize national happiness (Diener 2000, Kahneman et al. 2004, Layard 2005) to those who firmly oppose this idea on various grounds (Burchardt 2006, Nussbaum 2008, among others). There seems to be a consensus on the idea that happiness studies suggest a welcome shift of focus, in social evaluation, from purely materialistic performances to a broader set of values. Above all, one can consider that the traditional suspicion among economists about the possibility to measure subjective well-being is being assuaged by the recent progress.