Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The New Science of Pleasure

Daniel McFadden just has a new NBER Working Paper with the amazing title: The New Science of Pleasure. The abstract reads

"The neoclassical view of consumers as relentless egoistic maximizers is challenged by evidence from cognitive psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, and neurology. This paper begins by surveying the development of neoclassical consumer theory and the measurement of welfare, and expansions to encompass preference fields, nonlinear budgets, hedonic goods and household production, and consumption dynamics. Following this, it reviews the newer evidence on consumer behavior, and what this implies for the measurement of consumer beliefs, intentions, preferences, choices, and well-being."

For an older, freely accessible version click here

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