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Beyond Outcomes: Measuring Procedural Utility

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Author Info
Bruno S. Frey
Alois Stutzer

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Abstract

People not only obtain utility from actual outcomes but also from the conditions which lead to these outcomes. The paper proposes an economic concept of this notion of procedural utility. Preferences beyond outcome can be manifold. We distinguish procedural utility people get from institutions as such, i.e. from how allocative and redistributive decisions are taken, procedural utility from activities towards which people have an intrinsic attitude and procedural utility from the way being treated in interaction with other people. In an empirical application, it is studied whether people gain procedural utility from participating in the political decision-making process itself, irrespective of the outcome. Utility is measured by individuals’ reported subjective well-being. We find that participation rights provide procedural utility in terms of a feeling of self-determination and influence. In contrast, actual participation and use of participation rights does not.

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Paper provided by Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW in its series IEW - Working Papers with number iewwp076.

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Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:076

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Related research
Keywords: Procedural utility; subjective well-being; political participation; participation rights;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Carlo Borzaga & Ermanno Tortia, 2004. "Worker involvement in entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations. Toward a new assessment of workers' perceived satisfaction and fairness," Department of Economics Working Papers 0409, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia. [Downloadable!]
  2. Brian Roe & Steven Y. Wu, 2005. "Social Preferences and Relational Contracting Performance: An Experimental Investigation," Microeconomics 0509006, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  3. Bjornskov, Christian & Fischer, Justina AV & Dreher, Axel, 2008. "Formal Institutions and Subjective Well-Being: Revisiting the Cross-Country Evidence," MPRA Paper 17159, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2009. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Ermanno Tortia, 2006. "Worker satisfaction and perceived fairness: result of a survey in public, and non-profit organizations," Department of Economics Working Papers 0604, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia. [Downloadable!]
  5. Nadja Trhal & Ralf Radermacher, 2006. "Bad luck vs. self-inflicted neediness – An experimental investigation of gift giving in a solidarity game," Working Paper Series in Economics 28, University of Cologne, Department of Economics, revised 07 Mar 2008. [Downloadable!]
  6. Bruno Frey & Matthias Benz, 2003. "Being Independent is a Great Thing: Subjective Evaluations of Self-Employment and Hierarchy," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2003. "Direct Democracy: Designing a Living Constitution," CREMA Working Paper Series 2003-05, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Marc Le Menestrel, 2003. "A One-Shot Prisoners’ Dilemma with Procedural Utility," Economics Working Papers 819, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
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