A Case for Happiness, Cardinalism, and Interpersonal Comparability
批评现代经济学偏好偏好、序数效用和反对人际比较的倾向，主张回归幸福、基数效用和人际可比性，并指出这一视角转变对概念和政策有重要意义。
Modern economists are strongly biased in favour of preference (in contrast to happiness), ordinalism, and against interpersonal comparison. I wish to argue for the opposite. The proposed change in perspective has important conceptual and policy significance, as also evidenced in the papers by Frank and Oswald in this issue that I strongly endorse. Neoclassical economists used more subjective terms like satisfaction, marginal utility, and even happiness, pleasure, and pain. After the indifference‐curve or ordinalism revolution in the 1930s, modern economists are very adverse to the more subjective concepts and very hostile to cardinal utility and interpersonal comparisons of utility. They prefer to use the more objective concepts like preference and choice. In a very important sense, these changes represent an important methodological advance, making economic analysis based on more objective grounds. However, the change or correction has been carried to an excess, making economics...