Happiness Inequality: How Much is Reasonable?

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• 作者：Néstor Gandelman (1)
  Rafael Porzecanski (2)
  
• 关键词：Income inequality ; Happiness ; Relative risk aversion
• 刊名：Social Indicators Research
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：January 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：110
• 期：1
• 页码：257-269
• 全文大小：260KB
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• 作者单位：Néstor Gandelman (1)
  Rafael Porzecanski (2)
  
  1. Universidad ORT Uruguay, Bulevar Espa?a 2633, 11300, Montevideo, Uruguay
  2. University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  
• ISSN：1573-0921

文摘

We compute the Gini indexes for income, happiness and various simulated utility levels. Due to decreasing marginal utility of income, happiness inequality should be lower than income inequality. We find that happiness inequality is about half that of income inequality. To compute the utility levels we need to assume values for a key parameter that can be interpreted as a measure of relative risk aversion. If this coefficient is above one, as many economists believe, then a large part of happiness inequality is not related to pecuniary dimensions of life.