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Is man doomed to progress?

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Senik, Claudia

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to the empirical exploration of the welfare effect of expectations and progress per se. Using ten waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, a panel household survey rich in subjective variables, the analysis suggests that for a given total stock of inter-temporal consumption, agents are more satisfied with an increasing time-profile of consumption: they seem to have a strong "taste for improvement".

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File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(08)00067-X
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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Volume (Year): 68 (2008)
Issue (Month): 1 (October)
Pages: 140-152

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Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:68:y:2008:i:1:p:140-152
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
  • D9 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice
  • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
  • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July.
  2. Daniel Kahneman & Peter P. Wakker & Rakesh Sarin, 1997. "Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 375-406.
  3. Martin Browning & M. Dolores Collado, 2001. "The Response of Expenditures to Anticipated Income Changes: Panel Data Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 681-692, June.
  4. Van Praag, Bernard, 1971. "The welfare function of income in Belgium: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 337-369.
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  7. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D. (ed.), 2003. "The Psychology of Economic Decisions: Volume One: Rationality and Well-Being," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199251087.
  8. Stutzer, Alois, 2004. "The role of income aspirations in individual happiness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 89-109, May.
  9. Mathias Dewatripont & Isabelle Brocas & Juan Carrillo, 2004. "Commitment devices under self-control problems: an overview," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9665, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  10. Di Tella, Rafael & Haisken-De New, John & MacCulloch, Robert, 2010. "Happiness adaptation to income and to status in an individual panel," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 834-852, December.
  11. Andrew E. Clark & Ed Diener & Yannis Georgellis & Richard E. Lucas, 2008. "Lags And Leads in Life Satisfaction: a Test of the Baseline Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(529), pages 222-243, 06.
  12. Loewenstein, George F & Sicherman, Nachum, 1991. "Do Workers Prefer Increasing Wage Profiles?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 67-84, January.
  13. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, 07.
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  16. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
  17. Senik, Claudia, 2004. "When information dominates comparison: Learning from Russian subjective panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2099-2123, August.
  18. Easterlin, Richard A., 1995. "Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 35-47, June.
  19. Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2001. "Psychological Expected Utility Theory and Anticipatory Feelings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(1), pages 55-79.
  20. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D. (ed.), 2004. "The Psychology of Economic Decisions: Volume Two: Reasons and Choices," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199257225.
  21. Lowenstein, George & Prelec, Drazen, 1991. "Negative Time Preference," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 347-352, May.
  22. Graham, Liam & Oswald, Andrew J., 2006. "Hedonic Capital," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 745, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  23. Ed Diener & Richard Lucas, 2000. "Explaining Differences in Societal Levels of Happiness: Relative Standards, Need Fulfillment, Culture, and Evaluation Theory," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 41-78, March.
  24. Graham, Carol & Eggers, Andrew & Sukhtankar, Sandip, 2004. "Does happiness pay?: An exploration based on panel data from Russia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 319-342, November.
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Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. The queen’s speech
    by Gigi Foster in Core Economics on 2012-09-11 04:46:40
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
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Cited by:

  1. Sean Duffy & John Smith, 2013. "Preference for increasing wages: How do people value various streams of income?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(1), pages 74-90, January.
  2. Graham, Liam & Oswald, Andrew J., 2010. "Hedonic capital, adaptation and resilience," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 372-384, November.
  3. Landeghem Bert van, 2011. "A Test for the Convexity of Human Well-Being over the Life Cycle: Longitudinal Evidence from a 20-Year Panel," Research Memorandum 043, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
  4. Christian Schubert, 2012. "Pursuing Happiness," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2012-01, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
  5. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John & Woods, Kristin, 2015. "How does the preference for increasing payments depend on the size and source of the payments?," MPRA Paper 64212, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  6. Tufan Ekici & Selda Koydemir, 2016. "Income Expectations and Happiness: Evidence from British Panel Data," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 11(2), pages 539-552, June.
  7. Marco Bertoni & Luca Corazzini, 2015. "Life Satisfaction and Endogenous Aspirations," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 761, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
  8. Foster, Gigi & Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W., 2012. "The triumph of hope over disappointment: A note on the utility value of good health expectations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 206-214.
  9. Stefano Bartolini & Ennio Bilancini & Maurizio Pugno, 2013. "Did the Decline in Social Connections Depress Americans’ Happiness?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 1033-1059, February.
  10. Frijters, Paul & Liu, Amy Y.C. & Meng, Xin, 2012. "Are optimistic expectations keeping the Chinese happy?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 159-171.
  11. Schubert Christian & Binder Martin, 2014. "Reconciling Normative and Behavioral Economics: An Application of the “Naturalistic Approach” to the Adaptation Problem," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 234(2-3), pages 350-365, April.
  12. Cai, Shu & Park, Albert, 2016. "Permanent income and subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 298-319.
  13. Liu, Zhiqiang & Shang, Qingyan, 2012. "Individual well-being in urban China: The role of income expectations," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 833-849.
  14. Paul Frijters & Gigi Foster & David W. Johnston, 2012. "The triumph of hope over regret: A note on the utility value of good health expectations," Discussion Papers Series 451, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
  15. Van Landeghem, Bert, 2012. "A test for the convexity of human well-being over the life cycle: Longitudinal evidence from a 20-year panel," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 571-582.
  16. Foster, Gigi & Frijters, Paul, 2014. "The formation of expectations: Competing theories and new evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 66-81.
  17. Luigi Curini & Stefano Iacus & Luciano Canova, 2015. "Measuring Idiosyncratic Happiness Through the Analysis of Twitter: An Application to the Italian Case," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 525-542, April.
  18. Marta Barazzetta, 2015. "The asymmetric effect of expectations on subjective well-being," Working Papers 374, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
  19. Asena Caner, 2015. "Happiness, Comparison Effects, and Expectations in Turkey," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 1323-1345, October.
  20. Landeghem Bert van, 2011. "A Test for the Convexity of Human Well-Being over the Life Cycle: Longitudinal Evidence from a 20-Year Panel," ROA Research Memorandum 008, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).

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