Beyond the distinction between necessaries and luxuries

Maurizio Pugno

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The distinction made by the classical economists between necessaries and luxuries is weakened by two problems: how to draw the line between necessaries and luxuries in advanced modern economies; how to evaluate luxuries, whether positively for individual’s freedom and for the economy, or negatively because they appear unethical. This paper examines a possible way out of these problems that emerges both from Scitovsky’s approach to “human welfare” and from some overlooked insights of Marshall, Hawtrey, and Keynes, the Cambridge economists who inspired Scitovsky. The proposal is to split luxuries into two components, and to redefine them, together with necessaries, on the basis of people’s motivations and goals, as well as of the effects on well-being and on the economy.

Keywords: necessaries; luxuries; Scitovsky; well-being; welfare; Marshall; Hawtrey; Keynes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B20 D11 D60 I25 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-his, nep-hme and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/73729/1/MPRA_paper_73729.pdf original version (application/pdf)

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:pra:mprapa:73729

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().