Relative Income, Happiness and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles
提出相对收入进入效用函数可以解释伊斯特林悖论（收入增长但平均幸福不变），并综述了主观幸福感、行为实验和神经科学中关于收入比较的证据，讨论了其对消费、投资、增长等经济模型的影响。
The well-known Easterlin paradox points out that average happiness has remained constant over time despite sharp rises in GNP per head. At the same time, a micro literature has typically found positive correlations between individual income and individual measures of subjective well-being. This paper suggests that these two findings are consistent with the presence of relative income terms in the utility function. Income may be evaluated relative to others (social comparison) or to oneself in the past (habituation). We review the evidence on relative income from the subjective well-being literature. We also discuss the relation (or not) between happiness and utility, and discuss some nonhappiness research (behavioral, experimental, neurological) related to income comparisons. We last consider how relative income in the utility function can affect economic models of behavior in the domains of consumption, investment, economic growth, savings, taxation, labor supply, wages, and migration. Every pitifulest whipster that walks within a skin has had his head filled with the notion that he is, shall be, or by all human and divine laws ought to be, “happy.” Thomas Carlyle