Abstract
One of the most intriguing issues in human sciences is the nature and measurement of well-being. Feelings of well-being or lack of well-being are determined by many factors. One of the most important determinants is individual income as an index for the availability of material resources. If we take the other factors to be constant, we may concentrate on the question how well-being changes with variations in income. To stress that we like to consider only this effect we do not speak of well-being but of income utility or alternatively of welfare derived from income. Let U stand for income utility and y for income, then we are interested in the assumed relationship U = U(y). It will be called the individual welfare function of income or WFI for short.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Buyze, J. (1982), ‘The Estimation of Welfare Levels of a Cardinal Utility Function’, European Economic Review, Vol. 17, pp. 325–332.
Duesenberry, J.S. (1949), Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behavior, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Easterlin, R.A. (1974), ‘Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence’, in: P.A. David and M.W. Reder(eds.), Nations and Households in Economic Growth. Essays in Honor of Moses Abramowitz, Academic Press, New York, pp. 89–125.
Helson, H. (1964), Adaptation-Level Theory; an Experimental and Systematic Approach to Behavior, Harper, New York.
Kapteyn, A. (1977), A Theory of Preference Formation, Ph.D. thesis, Leyden University, Leyden.
Kapteyn, A., T.J. Wansbeek and J. Buyze (1980), ‘The Dynamics of Preference Formation’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 1, pp. 123–157.
Kapteyn, A. and T.J. Wansbeek (1985a), ‘The Individual Welfare Function: A Review’, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 6, pp. 333–363.
Kapteyn, A. and T.J. Wansbeek (1985b), ‘The Individual Welfare Function: A Rejoinder’, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 6, pp. 375–381.
Layard, R. (1980), ‘Human Satisfaction and Public Policy’, The Economic Journal, Vol. 9, pp. 737–750.
Marquardt, D.W. (1963), ‘An Algorithm for Least Squares Estimation of Non-Linear Parameters’, Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 11, pp. 431–441.
Merton, R.K. and A. Rossi (1968), ‘Contributions to the Theory of Reference Group Behavior’, in: R.K. Merton (ed.), Social Theory and Social Structure, enlarged edition, Free Press, New York, pp. 279–334.
Rainwater, L. (1974), What Money Buys: Inequality and the Social Meaning of Income, Basic Books, New York.
Ratchford, B.T. (1985), ‘The Individual Welfare Function: A Comment’, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 6, pp. 365–374.
Rossi, P.H., W.A. Sampson, C.E. Bose, G. Jasso and J. Passell (1974), ‘Measuring Household Social Standing’, Social Science Research, Vol. 3, pp. 169–190.
Rossi, P.H. (1979), ‘Vignette Analysis: Uncovering the Normative Structure of Complex Judgments’, in: R.K. Merton, J.S. Coleman and P.H. Rossi (eds.) (1979), Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of Paul F. Lazarsfeld, The Free Press, New York, pp. 176–186.
Rossi, P.H. and S.L. Nock (eds.) (1982), Measuring Social Judgments. The Factorial Survey Approach, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills.
Runciman, W.G. (1966), Relative Deprivation and Social Justice, Rowledge & Kegan Paul, London.
Stevens, S.S. (1975), Psychophysics: Introduction to its Perceptual, Neural and Social Prospects, John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Stouffer, S.A., E.A. Suchman, L.C. DeVinney, S.A. Star and R.M. Williams Jr. (1949), The American Soldier: Adjustment during Army Life, Vol. 1, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Van Praag, B.M.S. (1968), Individual Welfare Functions and Consumer Behavior, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam.
Van Praag, B.M.S. (1971), The Welfare Function of Income in Belgium: An Empirical Investigation’, European Economic Review, Vol. 2, pp. 337–369.
Van Praag, B.M.S. and A. Kapteyn (1973), ‘Further Evidence on the Individual Welfare Function of Income: An Empirical Investigation in the Netherlands’, European Economic Review, Vol. 4, pp. 33–62.
Van Praag, B.M.S., A. Kapteyn and F.G. van Herwaarden (1978), ‘The Individual Welfare Function of Income: A Lognormal Distribution Function!’, European Economic Review, Vol. 11, pp. 395–402.
Van Praag, B.M.S. (1981), ‘Reflections on the Theory of Individual Welfare Functions’, report 81.14, Center for Research in Public Economics, Leyden University, proceedings of the American Statistical Association.
Van Praag, B.M.S., S. Dubnoff and N.L. van der Sar (1985), ‘From Judgments to Norms: Measuring the Social Meaning of Income, Age and Education’, report 8509/E, Econometric Institute, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1988 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van der Sar, N.L., van Praag, B.M.S., Dubnoff, S. (1988). Evaluation Questions and Income Utility. In: Munier, B.R. (eds) Risk, Decision and Rationality. Theory and Decision Library, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4019-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4019-2_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8283-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4019-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive