ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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How does this work with products that induce chemical addiction? Or a consumer susceptible to dependence issues?
I can be alcoholic and bemoan my alcoholism, but my continued consumption of alcohol would still make me Better Off under this standard. This would still be so even if I were willing to buy a restriction on my ability to consume alcohol. This doesn't seem right.
What about the effects of cultural pressure? In the auto industry, many people buy a certain brand because "We're Chevy people." I suppose fitting in creates a certain level of happiness, but I'm not sure it's an accurate measure.
I like the idea because it seems like economists don't take consumer ignorance and preference discovering into account. I am highly skeptical of using happiness because of hedonic adaptation. I suppose it makes a plausible club to use to drive us towards socialism, or at least, steeper progressive taxes, but I think that is the wrong conclusion to draw given that, for example, people who have become disabled rebound from nearly all of their lost happiness. The better lesson is that we have a happiness set point and it only changes to provide alerts for acute conditions, not chronic ones.
I'm a bit concerned with ex ante versus ex post distinctions; if I buy something risky, how is this happiness being measured? Is the hope that it will average out in some fashion?
Again, you're not looking at the recent Kahneman stuff. If you're talking happiness at all, and not referencing it, you're out of date at this point.
His talk
Falkenstein's post
My two posts.
"...if someone complains about X but keeps buying it..."
Ha! Reminds me of voting.
"By the Happiness Standard, every kid we have makes us slightly worse off - at least on average."
So you don't agree with these results anymore?
In quite possibly all cases, the Consumer Satisfaction Standard could just be an easier way of measuring the Happiness standard, and differences between the two could be explained by research flaws.
The Happiness Standard is better than Demonstrated Preference. The latter overlooks the fact that consumers sometimes act altruistically: they voluntarily do something they know will make them worse off, for the sake of some other person or people, or some abstract principle to which they are committed, or the like.
Bryan's Consumer Satisfaction Standard suffers from this same defect. Also, it fails to specify *when* the consumer is to be asked whether he endorses his earlier decision (which, I assume, is what Bryan has in mind by "making the decision over again").
A special case of my altruism point: I have heard a number of divorced people say, I made a mistake marrying X, but I can't wish it hadn't happened because I love the children who were born of that marriage.
The Happiness Standard is better than Demonstrated Preference. The latter overlooks the fact that consumers sometimes act altruistically: they voluntarily do something they know will make them worse off, for the sake of some other person or people, or some abstract principle to which they are committed, or the like.
Bryan's Consumer Satisfaction Standard suffers from this same defect. Also, it fails to specify *when* the consumer is to be asked whether he endorses his earlier decision (which, I assume, is what Bryan has in mind by "making the decision over again").
A special case of my altruism point: I have heard a number of divorced people say, I made a mistake marrying X, but I can't wish it hadn't happened because I love the children who were born of that marriage.
Sure, but in that case they should want to do the marriage over again. If ValueOfKids - UnhappinessOfMarriage > 0, which you seem to imply.
The divorced person would probably have been happier marrying someone else and having other children. S/he rejects that alternative for the sake of his/her actual children.
Why do use say "demonstrated preferences" (Rothbard) rather than the standard "revealed preference." Do you mean to convey the absence of consistency and transitivity requirements? Or what?