The major objective of this paper is to estimate regional utility levels based on interregional migration data. We first revealed three stylized facts concerning migration behavior by examining long-term Japanese data on interregional migration. We then uncovered inconsistency between net...

Amartya Sen has shown how liberal rights can produce outcomes that everyone would prefer to avoid, thereby violating the Pareto principle. Similarly, Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell identify potential conflicts between the Pareto principle and notions of "fairness" which give weight to...

A thought experiment is designed to investigate whether the structure of risk aversion (i.e., the changes in absolute or relative risk aversion associated with changes in wealth) can be estimated with reasonable precision from agricultural production data. Findings strongly suggest that typical...

The problem of constructing a representation of preferences appears when it is needed to assign utility functions to preferences in a well-defined way, since in general many utilities will represent the same preference. In models where the preferences of the agents vary, and the behaviour of the...

A large segment of cryptoassets consists of tokens—simple code running on programmable blockchains such as Ethereum—that serve as a payment or governance mechanism for an underlying digital platform, usually a peer-to-peer marketplace of various services. An ongoing debate about the...

Work ethics affects labor supply. This idea is modeled assuming that work is habit forming. This paper introduces working habits in a neoclassical growth model and compares its outcomes with a model without habit formation. In addition, it analyzes the impact of different forms of technical...

The impossibility theorems of Arrow, Sen, Kemp-Ng, and Parks show that interpersonally comparable individual cardinal utilities are needed for making social decisions. But virtually all economists regard cardinal utility and interpersonal comparisons of utility as practically impossible to...

People often consume non-durable goods in a way that seems inconsistent with preferences for smoothing consumption over time. We suggest that such patterns of consumption can be better explained if one takes into account the memories that consumption generates. A memorable good, such as a...