This paper provides numerical examinations on sustainability of genuine saving (GS) using theWorld Bank database. Unlikely to previous criteria of sustainability, we consider future sustainability by focusing on evolution of GS. In this case even if the historical average GS of a country is...

This paper provides evidence from Internet-based, large-scale survey data of hypothetical choice experiment on the relative utility hypothesis. The methodology exploited here complements previous empirical results from happiness studies, incentivized choice experiment studies, and neuroscience...

Ever since the classical works of Smith and Veblen, economists have recognized that individuals care about their relative positions and status in addition to their own consumption. This paper addresses a new framework of choice experiments in order to specify the shape of utility function with...

While there is now something of a consensus in the literature on the economics of happiness that income comparisons to others help determine subjective wellbeing, debate continues over the relative importance of own and reference-group income, in particular in research on the Easterlin paradox....

Economists have long been concerned that negative attitudes about relative income reduce social welfare. This paper investigates whether such attitudes can be mitigated by a simple information treatment. Toward this end, we conducted an original randomized online survey experiment in the US and...

This article uses survey data of workers in Japan to study the effects of own and self-reported reference wages on subjective well-being. Higher wages lead to higher life and job satisfaction. When workers perceive that their peers earn higher wages, they report lower well-being. We compare our...

This paper combines three prototype endogenous growth models, the models with human capital accumulation introduced by Uzawa [1965] and Lucas [1988], variety expansion by Romer [1990], and quality improvements by Aghion and Howitt [1992], in order to investigate how these three engines of growth...

After severe disasters, persons living not only in the directly affected areas, but also in distant areas could be seriously affected thorough images of the disaster on television and in newspapers. Hence, it can be difficult to define qualified beneficiaries for policy compensation in terms of...

We address the local home environment externality conceptualized by Galor and Tsiddon (1997a; 1997b) in the two sector growth model of Lucas (1988). We show that this version of externality related to human capital accumulation process can be a source of indeterminacy.

This article uses survey data of 90,000 union employees working in 62 publicly-traded companies in Japan between 1990 and 2004 to study the effect of both own and self-reported reference wages on workers' subjective well-being levels. The availability of self-reported reference wages generates...