IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/irv/wpaper/060721.html

Money, Happiness, and Aspirations: An Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Michael McBride

    (Department of Economics, University of California-Irvine)

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in the scientific study of happiness. Economists, in particular, find that happiness increases in income but decreases in income aspirations, and this work prompts examination of how aspirations form and adapt over time. This paper presents results from the first experimental study of how multiple factors -- past payments, social comparisons, and expectations -- influence aspiration formation and reported satisfaction. I find that expectations and social comparisons significantly affect reported satisfaction, and that subjects care relatively more about social comparisons once they have achieved a satisfactory outcome. These findings support an aspirations-based theory of happiness.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael McBride, 2007. "Money, Happiness, and Aspirations: An Experimental Study," Working Papers 060721, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:irv:wpaper:060721
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/workingpapers/2006-07/McBride-21.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:irv:wpaper:060721. 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: Melissa Valdez (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deucius.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.