The answer is that people's evaluations of their income situation are based on different considerations when the … of others undercuts the tendency for happiness to grow with an increase in one's own income, and happiness remains fairly … for income evaluations turns inward. "Financial hardship", the shortfall from one's own previous peak income, takes over …

In normative public economics it is crucial to know how fast the marginal utility of income declines as income …, using a number of assumptions, we are able to estimate the elasticity of marginal utility with respect to income. We obtain …