Against Utility-Based Economics

Against Utility-Based Economics PDF Author: Anastasios S. Korkotsides
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135009724
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Utility-based theory and the fallback choice-theoretic framework are shown to be biased, irremediably flawed and misleading. A radically different theory of value and of consumer behaviour is proposed based on existential interpretations of scarcity, value and self-interest. For self-conscious mortals, only time is scarce. All other is derivative scarcity. Value is in the life, as a knowledge extract of time, which goes into commodities as direct human labour and depreciated capital, through their production. By structuring their preferences, consumers try to confiscate more of such value per unit of expended income, extending their social presence, soothing their angst and gaining power over each other. This raises output and makes gains cancel out. Negative psychological externalities preclude any well-being or social-welfare type conclusion. These resolve a number of long-standing issues: endogenously generated growth, the micro-macro connection, the price mechanism, crises, unemployment, etc. Equilibrium is of a low-potential kind, not of a force-balancing one, and it is unique, reachable and stable. The relevant analytics involve purely economic, non-psychological entities. Consumer behaviour is grounded on a well-defined, structure-based decision criterion and on observably measurable magnitudes, only. The social ramifications of the two juxtaposed perspectives are discussed at length.

The Economics of Public Utility Regulation

The Economics of Public Utility Regulation PDF Author: Michael A. Crew
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349072958
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description


Measuring Utility

Measuring Utility PDF Author: Ivan Moscati
Publisher: Oxford Studies in History of E
ISBN: 0199372764
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Utility is a key concept in the economics of individual decision-making. However, utility is not measurable in a straightforward way. As a result, from the very beginning there has been debates about the meaning of utility as well as how to measure it. This book is an innovative investigation of how these arguments changed over time. Measuring Utility reconstructs economists' ideas and discussions about utility measurement from 1870 to 1985, as well as their attempts to measure utility empirically. The book brings into focus the interplay between the evolution of utility analysis, economists' ideas about utility measurement, and their conception of what measurement in general means. It also explores the relationships between the history of utility measurement in economics, the history of the measurement of sensations in psychology, and the history of measurement theory in general. Finally, the book discusses some methodological problems related to utility measurement, such as the epistemological status of the utility concept and its measures. The first part covers the period 1870-1910, and discusses the issue of utility measurement in the theories of Jevons, Menger, Walras and other early utility theorists. Part II deals with the emergence of the notions of ordinal and cardinal utility during the period 1900-1945, and discusses two early attempts to give an empirical content to the notion of utility. Part III focuses on the 1945-1955 debate on utility measurement that was originated by von Neumann and Morgenstern's expected utility theory (EUT). Part IV reconstructs the experimental attempts to measure the utility of money between 1950 and 1985 within the framework provided by EUT. This historical and epistemological overview provides keen insights into current debates about rational choice theory and behavioral economics in the theory of individual decision-making and the philosophy of economics.

Intermediate Microeconomics

Intermediate Microeconomics PDF Author: Patrick M. Emerson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages :

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The Limitations of Marginal Utility (Essential Economics Series: Celebrated Economists)

The Limitations of Marginal Utility (Essential Economics Series: Celebrated Economists) PDF Author: Thorstein Veblen
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
ISBN: 1473399114
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 23

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Book Description
Originally published in 1909, this is a work by Thorstein Veblen, an American economist and sociologist. It is an article written for the Journal of Political Economy publication outlining some of his theories on economics. We are republishing this work with a brand new introductory biography of the author with the aim of placing it in the context of his other writings and achievements. The following passage is an extract from the article: 'The limitations of the marginal-utility economics are sharp and characteristic. It is from first to last a doctrine of value, and in point of form and method it is a theory of valuation. The whole system, therefore, lies within the theoretical field of distribution, and it has but a secondary bearing on any other economic phenomena than those of distribution -- the term being taken in its accepted sense of pecuniary distribution, or distribution in point of ownership.'

Mathematical Psychics

Mathematical Psychics PDF Author: Francis Ysidro Edgeworth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Econometrics
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description


Advances in Public Economics: Utility, Choice and Welfare

Advances in Public Economics: Utility, Choice and Welfare PDF Author: Ulrich U. Schmidt
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387257063
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
This Festschrift in honor ofChristian Seidl combines a group of prominent authors who are experts in areas like public economics, welfare economic, decision theory, and experimental economics in a unique volume. Christian Seidl who has edited together with Salvador Barber` a ` and Peter Hammond the Handbook of Utility Theory (appearing at Kluwer Academic Publishers/Springer Economics), has dedicated most of his research to utility and decision theory, social choice theory, welfare economics, and public economics. During the last decade, he has turned part of his attention to a research tool that is increasingly gaining in importance in economics: the laboratory experiment. This volume is an attempt to illuminate all facets of Christian Seidl’s ambitious research agenda by presenting a collection of both theoretical and expe- mental papers on Utility,Choice,andWelfare written by his closest friends, former students, and much valued colleagues. Christian Seidl was born on August 5, 1940, in Vienna, Austria. Beginning Winter term 1962/63, he studied Economics and Business Administration at the Vienna School of Economics (then “Hochschule fff ̈ ur ̈ Welthandel”). 1966 he was awarded an MBA by the Vienna School of Economics and 1969 a doctoral degree in Economics. In October 1968 Christian became a research assistant at the Institute of Economics at the University of Vienna. 1973 he acquired his habilitation (right to teach) in Economics — supervised by Wilhelm Weber — from the Department of Law and Economics of the University of Vienna. He was awarded the Dr.

Risky Curves

Risky Curves PDF Author: Daniel Friedman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317821238
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
For several decades, the orthodox economics approach to understanding choice under risk has been to assume that each individual person maximizes some sort of personal utility function defined over purchasing power. This new volume contests that even the best wisdom from the orthodox theory has not yet been able to do better than supposedly naïve models that use rules of thumb, or that focus on the consumption possibilities and economic constraints facing the individual. The authors assert this by first revisiting the origins of orthodox theory. They then recount decades of failed attempts to obtain meaningful empirical validation or calibration of the theory. Estimated shapes and parameters of the "curves" have varied erratically from domain to domain (e.g., individual choice versus aggregate behavior), from context to context, from one elicitation mechanism to another, and even from the same individual at different time periods, sometimes just minutes apart. This book proposes the return to a simpler sort of scientific theory of risky choice, one that focuses not upon unobservable curves but rather upon the potentially observable opportunities and constraints facing decision makers. It argues that such an opportunities-based model offers superior possibilities for scientific advancement. At the very least, linear utility – in the presence of constraints - is a useful bar for the "curved" alternatives to clear.

Utility Maximization, Choice and Preference

Utility Maximization, Choice and Preference PDF Author: Fuad Aleskerov
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662049929
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
The utility maximization paradigm forms the basis of many economic, psychological, cognitive and behavioral models. However, numerous examples have revealed the deficiencies of the concept. This book helps to overcome those deficiencies by taking into account insensitivity of measurement threshold and context of choice. The second edition has been updated to include the most recent developments and a new chapter on classic and new results for infinite sets.

Valuing Health

Valuing Health PDF Author: Daniel M. Hausman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190233184
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Valuing Health provides a philosophically sophisticated overview of generic health measurement systems, which clarifies their value commitments and criticizes their dependence on preference surveys to assign values to health states. In it, philosopher Daniel M. Hausman argues that the public value of health states depends on the activity limits and suffering that health states impose.