From Preference to Happiness

Yew-Kwang Ng ()

Chapter 11 in Welfare Economics, 2004, pp 257-283 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Welfare economics has achieved much, although it still has long-standing weaknesses, such as the inability to make non-Pareto comparisons due to the difficulty of making interpersonal comparisons of cardinal utilities. Ways of overcoming this weakness have been discussed in Chapter 5 and in Ng (1996a, 2000a), but the use of interpersonally comparable cardinal utilities has not been widely accepted by economists. In this chapter it is argued that welfare economics is too narrow in focus and should be expanded to make the analysis more complete, and hence more useful. Important reformulations of welfare economics and cost—benefit analysis are needed. Some of the points discussed below have long been known about but have largely been ignored in welfare economic analysis. Some are less well known or are controversial, but are nevertheless important for welfare.

Keywords: Welfare Economic; Excessive Consumerism; Public Spending; Relative Income; Private Consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-4039-4406-1_11

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DOI: 10.1057/9781403944061_11

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