Is Homo Economicus An Ideal to be Pursued? Using US and Japan Survey Data*

Shoko Yamane, Hiroyasu Yoneda and Yoshiro Tsutsui ()

Asian Economic Journal, 2020, vol. 34, issue 4, 357-378

Abstract: This study investigated how the various characteristics of Homo economicus (intellectual ability, self‐control, selfishness, fairness and pursuit of monetary gain) correlate with individual performance. We adopted income and happiness as measures of individual performance. Using large‐scale survey data from Japan and the USA, we found that: (i) generally, Homo economicus is an ideal person from the perspective of economic success; (ii) Homo economicus has many traits that make her/him unhappy; (iii) intellectual ability is a strong trait of Homo economicus for both economic success and happiness; and (iv) the results for Japan and the USA are quite similar.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/asej.12222

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:asiaec:v:34:y:2020:i:4:p:357-378

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1351-3958

Access Statistics for this article

Asian Economic Journal is currently edited by Sung Yun-Wing and Shigeyuki Abe

More articles in Asian Economic Journal from East Asian Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().