Fabio Arcangeli, Paul David, Frank Engelman, Christopher Freeman, Massimo Moggi, Richard Nelson, Luigi Orsenigo, Nathan Rosenberg, Michele Salvati, G. N. von Tunzelman, two anonymous referees, and the participants at the meeting of the Committee on Distribution, Growth, and Technical Progress of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), Rome, November 16, 1985, have helped with various redraftings. A particularly grateful acknowledgment is for the insightful and patient help of Moses Abramovitz. This work has been undertaken at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, as part of the research program of the Designated Research Centre, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Earlier support to the research that led to this paper by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) is also gratefully acknowledged. The statistical research has been undertaken with the assistance of Stephano Brioschi, Ilaria Fornari, and Giovannu Prennushi.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2726526

Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation

Satisfaction and comparison income

The well-known Easterlin paradox points out that average happiness has remained constant over time despite sharp rises in GNP per head. At the same time, a micro literature has typically found positive correlations between individual income and individual measures of subjective well-being. This paper suggests that these two findings are consistent with the presence of relative income terms in the utility function. Income may be evaluated relative to others (social comparison) or to oneself in the past (habituation). We review the evidence on relative income from the subjective well-being literature. We also discuss the relation (or not) between happiness and utility, and discuss some nonhappiness research (behavioral, experimental, neurological) related to income comparisons. We last consider how relative income in the utility function can affect economic models of behavior in the domains of consumption, investment, economic growth, savings, taxation, labor supply, wages, and migration.

Relative Income, Happiness and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles

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Relative income, happiness, and utility : an explanation for the Easterlin paradox and other puzzles

A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

/pdf/education-at-a-glance-m5vl7o68j5.pdf

Education at a Glance

On limiting the market for status signals

https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/184/175.pdf;sequence=1

Optimal income tax in the presence of status effects

diffusion at some length. In essence we may think of there being two variables on which expectations may be formed, price and technology. Rosenberg's argument is that for a given current price and technology, the lower is the expected future price or the more improvements are expected in technology in the future, the greater is the likelihood that a potential adopter of the new technology will delay adoption. Thus expectations will affect the diffusion path. As examples, one may consider the purchase of a calculator three or four years ago or a personal computer today. One's predictions on future changes in price and technology definitely seem to impinge on the decision whether to buy or to wait. Our first task is to investigate these propositions of Rosenberg. They require further investigation because: a) the above arguments take current price as given. We need therefore to explore the impact of expectations on current prices before any definitive statements on their effect can be made. This requires an investigation of the whole time profile of prices over the diffusion rather than taking a snapshot of any one particular point on the diffusion path. b) Rosenberg's arguments suggest that diffusion is delayed by expectations of price falls or technology improvements. It does not tell us anything of the end point of the diffusion process in the sense of whether the

Norman J. Ireland

Papers

On limiting the market for status signals

Optimal income tax in the presence of status effects

Technological diffusion, expectations and welfare'

The Role of Supply Factors in the Diffusion of New Process Technology

Status-seeking, income taxation and efficiency