IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/agecon/v16y1997i3p155-169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The estimation of marginal utility of income for application to agricultural policy analysis

Author

Listed:
  • E. Neal Blue
  • Luther Tweeten

Abstract

A quality‐of‐life index (QLI), a proxy measure of utility, is constructed by factor‐weighted and simple‐summation weighted aggregation of socio‐psychological measures of well‐being. The socio‐psychological measures were constructed from quality of life domains taken from selected years of the General Social Surveys [General Social Surveys, 1972–1993: Cumulative Code Book. Principal Investigator, James A. Davis; Director and Co‐Principal Investigator, Tom W. Smith — Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, 1993. (National Data Program for the Social Sciences Series, no. 13).]. The Quality of Life Indices (QLI) indices are regressed on selected socio‐demographic variables using quadratic. Cobb‐Douglas, square root, and semilog functional forms. QLI is much influenced by income, education, and health. As measured here, QLI is not much influenced by year of measurement, sector, or by region of residence. Much variability in the QLI is unique to individuals, and our results are suited to predict group, rather than individual well being. Practitioners computing the benefit–cost ratio for a public program, project, or policy can weight dollars by income groups with marginal utilities derived from this study. That methodology will matter: even the ‘conservative’ quadratic equation indicates that the marginal utility of income (MUI) for families with very low incomes is half as large as for families with median incomes.

Suggested Citation

  • E. Neal Blue & Luther Tweeten, 1997. "The estimation of marginal utility of income for application to agricultural policy analysis," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 16(3), pages 155-169, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:16:y:1997:i:3:p:155-169
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1574-0862.1997.tb00451.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.1997.tb00451.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1574-0862.1997.tb00451.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agee Mark D & Crocker Thomas & Shogren Jason F, 2004. "An Economic Assessment of Parents' Self-Composure: The Case of Physical Child Abuse," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-41, April.
    2. Kula, E., 2002. "Regional Welfare Weights in Investment Appraisal - The Case of India," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 32(1), pages 1-16.
    3. David EVANS & Erhun KULA, 2009. "Social discount rates and welfare weights for public investment decisions under budgetary restrictions – the case of Cyprus," Departmental Working Papers 2009-19, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    4. David Evans, 2004. "A social discount rate for France," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(13), pages 803-808.
    5. D. Evans & E. Kula & H. Sezer, 2005. "Regional welfare weights for the UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(7), pages 923-937.
    6. Tweeten, Luther G., 1997. "Agricultural Industrialization: For Better Or Worse?," Economics and Sociology Occasional Papers - ESO Series 28337, Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
    7. Tweeten, Luther G., 1998. "Meeting Tomorrow'S Global Food Needs--A Moral Imperative," Economics and Sociology Occasional Papers - ESO Series 28335, Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
    8. Abdul-Mohsen, Ashraf & Hitzhusen, Frederick J., 2006. "Environmental Injustice: An Ohio Case Study," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21061, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Erhun KULA, 2006. "Regional welfare weights," Departmental Working Papers 2006-32, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:16:y:1997:i:3:p:155-169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.