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We analyze optimal social discount rates when people derive utility from relative consumption. We compare the social, private, and conventional Ramsey rates. Assuming a positive growth rate, we find that 1) the social discount rate exceeds the private discount rate if the importance of relative...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010617489
This paper discusses how a benevolent policy maker should act based on some, possibly non-welfaristic,ethical principle in cases where people's preferences are not perfectly informed,consistent and fully developed with regard to all goods, including all kinds of environmental goods, as is...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005423938
This paper discusses the standard welfare economics assumption anthropocentric welfarism, i.e. that only human well-being counts intrinsically. New survey evidence from a representative sample in Sweden is presented, indicating that anthropocentrism is strongly rejected, on average. However,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005423941
This paper concerns optimal income taxation under asymmetric information in a two-type overlapping generations model, where people care about their relative consumption compared to others. The appearance of positional concerns affects the policy choices via two channels: (i) the size of the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005423953
In a representative Swedish sample people were asked to judge the relative extent that different groups of people are considered trustworthy in several dimensions, including their political views and reading habits. A statistically significant effect of similarity on perceived trustworthiness...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005423957
It has recently been argued that giving is spontaneous while greed is calculated (Rand et al. 2012). If greed is calculated we would expect that cognitive load, which is assumed to reduce the influence of cognitive processes, should affect greed. In this paper we study both charitable giving and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010788972
Much evidence suggests that people are concerned with their relative consumption, i.e., their consumption in relation to the consumption of others. Yet, the social costs of conspicuous consumption have so far played little (or no) role in savings-based indicators of sustainable development. The...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010961525
This paper deals with optimal income taxation and relative consumption under a welfarist government that fully respects people’s preferences and a paternalist government that does not share the consumer preference for relative consumption. Consistent with previous findings, relative...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010961526
We measure people’s prosocial behavior, in terms of voluntary money and labor time contributions to an archetypical public good, a bridge, and in terms of voluntary money contributions in a public good game, using the same non-student sample in rural Vietnam at four different points in time...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011019086
Welfare economics relies on consequentialism. Whether a public action is good or bad is then determined by the consequences for people, rather than for example by the extent to which it infringes on others’ rights. Yet, many philosophers have questioned this assumption. The present note...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011019102