Beyond outcomes: measuring procedural utility

Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer

Oxford Economic Papers, 2005, vol. 57, issue 1, 90-111

Abstract: People not only obtain utility from actual outcomes but also from the conditions which lead to these outcomes. The paper proposes an economic concept of this notion of procedural utility. Preferences beyond outcome can be manifold. We distinguish procedural utility people get from institutions as such, i.e., from how allocative and redistributive decisions are taken, procedural utility from activities towards which people have an intrinsic attitude and procedural utility from the way being treated in interaction with other people. In an empirical application, it is studied whether people gain procedural utility from participating in the political decision-making process itself, irrespective of the outcome. Utility is measured by individuals' reported subjective well-being. We find that participation rights provide procedural utility in terms of a feeling of self-determination and influence. In contrast, actual participation and use of participation rights does not. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (138)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpi002 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Beyond Outcomes: Measuring Procedural Utility (2002)
Working Paper: Beyond Outcomes: Measuring Procedural Utility
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:oup:oxecpp:v:57:y:2005:i:1:p:90-111

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().