Measuring well-being and lives worth living

Marc Fleurbaey and Gregory Ponthiere

PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL

Abstract: We study the measurement of well-being when individuals have heterogeneous preferences, including dierent conceptions of a life worth living. When individuals dier in the conception of a life worth living, the equivalent income can regard an individual whose life is not worth living as being better o than an individual whose life is worth living. In order to avoid this paradoxical result, we reexamine the ethical foundations of well-being measures in such a way as to take into account heterogeneity in the conception of a life worth living. We derive, from simple axioms, an alternative measure of well-being, which is an equivalent income net of the income threshold making lifetime neutral. That new well-being index always ranks an individual whose life is not worth living as worse-o than an individual with a life worth living.

Keywords: Well-being; Measurement; Equivalent income; Lifetime; Value of life (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03907520v1
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Published in Economic Theory, 2023, ⟨10.1007/s00199-022-01446-0⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Measuring well-being and lives worth living (2023)
Working Paper: Measuring well-being and lives worth living (2023)
Working Paper: Measuring Well-Being and Lives Worth Living (2019)
Working Paper: Measuring Well-Being and Lives Worth Living (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-03907520

DOI: 10.1007/s00199-022-01446-0

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