This research field starts from the premise that the most challenging among human decisions are those relating to activities, which Tibor Scitovsky defined 'creative', whose aim is to create new, positive and long lasting states of well being rather than merely to satisfy recurrent needs. Two features characterize these activities: they are highly time-consuming and their outcome in terms of pleasure is uncertain. These two features might explain why recent surveys of time use show that individuals are frustrated about the way they spend their lives. In particular, they seem to consider leisure time as a sort of chimera that they fail to reach in spite of ever increasing income levels.
The aim of this research field is to try to explain why human beings fail to optimize their allocations of time. In particular the CreaM research center:
- promotes the definition of economic models in which individuals have to choose among time-consuming activities whose outcomes in terms of pleasure are unpredictable;
- collects and elaborate on those data, e.g. economic time use diaries, capable of describing both how individuals actually employ their lives and their assessment of the choices they make;
- elaborates on the definitions of some new welfare institutions, whose aim is to support individuals when they want to take active choices affecting the allocation of their time among different activities.