What Do People Want?

Daniel Benjamin, Kristen B. Cooper, Ori Heffetz, Miles Kimball and Tushar Kundu

No 33846, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We elicited over a million stated preference choices over 126 dimensions or “aspects” of well-being from a sample of 3,358 respondents on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Our surveys also collected self-reported well-being (SWB) questions about respondents’ current levels of the aspects of well-being. From the stated preference data, we estimate relative log marginal utilities per point on our 0-100 response scale for each aspect. We validate these estimates by comparing them to alternative methods for estimating preferences. Our findings provide empirical evidence that both complements and challenges philosophical perspectives on human desires and values. Our results support Aristotelian notions of eudaimonia through family relationships and Maslow’s emphasis on basic security needs, yet also suggest that contemporary theories of well-being may overemphasize abstract concepts such as happiness and life satisfaction, while undervaluing concrete aspects such as family well-being, financial security, and health, that respondents place the highest marginal utilities on. We document substantial heterogeneity in preferences across respondents within (but not between) demographic groups, with current SWB levels explaining a significant portion of the variation.

JEL-codes: D12 D90 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-hea and nep-hpe
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