Concerns about fraud in welfare programs are common arguments worldwide against such programs. We conducted a survey experiment with over 28,000 welfare program administrators and over 19,000 beneficiaries in Indonesia to elicit the ‘marginal disutility from corruption,’ i.e., the...

We provide the first estimate of the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption, μ, for Europe and for thirty individual European countries, using the income-tax individual-level data. Specifically, we rely on the absolute equal-sacrifice approach and CRRA utility function to elicit the...

This study applies broad-based measures of household consumption expenditure and a utility proxy to estimate the effect of health state on the marginal utility of consumption using the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey’s panel data covering 1994-2019. To do so, I estimate how an observed...

We provide the first estimate of the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption, η, for a post-transition economy in the Central & Eastern European region, the Czech Republic, based on individual-level data. The parameter η is a crucial component of the social discount rate (SDR), which...

Although the link between risk aversion and diminishing marginal utility of wealth is academically well established, theoretical discussions concerning its empirical validity remain. The presented, review-type paper aims to briefly examine theoretical roots responsible for the different views on...

The Austrian theory of the "marginal use" is restated and extended. It is found that the Austrian concept of marginal utility (as derived from the marginal use) is not dependent on cardinal utility, and indeed is consistent with "intrinsically ordinal" utility. In this system, diminishing...

I suggest the idea of a reporting function, r(.), from reality to feelings. The 'happiness' literature claims we have demonstrated diminishing marginal utility of income. I show not, and that knowing r(.)'s curvature is crucial. A quasi-experiment on heights is studied

It is commonly claimed in the recent happiness literature in psychology and economics that we have proved diminishing marginal utility of income. This paper suggests that we have not. It draws a distinction between concavity of the utility function and concavity of the reporting function

The theory of intertemporal choice predicts that the cross-sectional variance of the marginal utility of consumption is equal to its own lag plus a constant and a random component. Using general preference specifications and some assumptions about the nature of the random component, we provide...

The paper presents a random utility maximization model for individuals selecting discrete quantities from a set of n alternatives. Multiple alternatives with positive quantities may be selected. Diminishing marginal utility to quantity of each alternative is modeled via order statistics of...

Volume I -- 1 Cambridge, That Was: The Crucible of Heterodox Economics -- 1.1 The Narrative -- 1.2 Evolutions and Revolutions -- 1.2.1 The Great Banyan of Heterodox Traditions -- 1.2.2 Cohorts -- 1.2.3 The Cambridge Habitat -- 1.2.4 Which Cambridge? -- 1.3 Regime Change -- 1.3.1 The World of...

Chapter 1. What is Economics? -- Chapter 2. Exchange and Demand -- Chapter 3. Determination of Prices -- Chapter 4. Capital, Interest and Production -- Chapter 5. Prices of Factors of Production -- Chapter 6. Money and the Business Cycle -- Chapter 7. Competition and Entrepreneurship -- Chapter...

We challenge a commonly used assumption in the literature on social preferences and show that this assumption leads to significantly biased estimates of the social preference parameter. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that the literature's common restrictions on the curvature of...

The Shapiro-Stiglitz model plays an important role in the employment theory. Woodford pointed out the theoretic limitation of the linear worker's utility function in that model. He questioned the model's implication of the secular decline in the unemployment rate when such rate was in fact...

We challenge a commonly used assumption in the literature on social preferences and show that this assumption leads to significantly biased estimates of the social preference parameter. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that the literature's common restrictions on the curvature of...

This paper examines the marginal utility as a theory of value in comparison with the theories which preceded it. It compares in detail the utility theory with the predominant theory of value of classical economics, a cost theory which saw labor as the ultimate source of value. By introducing a...

How are substitution in the spatial and in the temporal sense connected? Can estimates based on data with spatial variation be transmitted into values appropriate for exploring temporal variation, and vice versa? This paper, building on, inter alia, Frisch (1959), attempts to give some...

This chapter deals with Gramsci's remarks and some potential subjects of discussion with Sraffa about Ricardo, classical political economy and "pure economics". For him, the importance of Ricardo in the formation of Marx's ideas must be reassessed from the point of view of the world’s...

This paper shows that the possibility of formally incorporating reference-dependence into the theory of consumer behavior was explored well before Kahneman and Tversky (1991); specifically, in separate papers by Alt, Samuelson or Bernardelli in late 1930s. These papers emerged within a debate on...

How quickly does marginal utility diminish? It depends on the dimension along which we consider concavity of the utility function. This paper estimates the distribution of heterogeneous curvature parameters in individuals' utility functions from hypothetical choice data, while carefully...