Download or read book Measuring Utility written by Ivan Moscati and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utility is a key concept in the economics of individual decision-making. However, utility is not measurable in a straightforward way. As a result, from the very beginning there has been debates about the meaning of utility as well as how to measure it. This book is an innovative investigation of how these arguments changed over time. Measuring Utility reconstructs economists' ideas and discussions about utility measurement from 1870 to 1985, as well as their attempts to measure utility empirically. The book brings into focus the interplay between the evolution of utility analysis, economists' ideas about utility measurement, and their conception of what measurement in general means. It also explores the relationships between the history of utility measurement in economics, the history of the measurement of sensations in psychology, and the history of measurement theory in general. Finally, the book discusses some methodological problems related to utility measurement, such as the epistemological status of the utility concept and its measures. The first part covers the period 1870-1910, and discusses the issue of utility measurement in the theories of Jevons, Menger, Walras and other early utility theorists. Part II deals with the emergence of the notions of ordinal and cardinal utility during the period 1900-1945, and discusses two early attempts to give an empirical content to the notion of utility. Part III focuses on the 1945-1955 debate on utility measurement that was originated by von Neumann and Morgenstern's expected utility theory (EUT). Part IV reconstructs the experimental attempts to measure the utility of money between 1950 and 1985 within the framework provided by EUT. This historical and epistemological overview provides keen insights into current debates about rational choice theory and behavioral economics in the theory of individual decision-making and the philosophy of economics.
Download or read book Utility of Gains and Losses written by R. Duncan Luce and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new monograph presents Dr. Luce's current understanding of the behavioral properties people exhibit (or should exhibit) when they make selections among alternatives and how these properties lead to numerical representations of those preferences. It summarizes, and places in historical perspective, the research Dr. Luce has done on utility theory for over 10 years. Included are axiomatic theoretical formulations, experiments designed to test individual assumptions, and analyses of the fit to bodies of data of numerical representations derived from the theory.
Download or read book Utility Theories Measurements and Applications written by Ward Edwards and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Conference on "Utility: Theories, Measurements, and Applications" met at the Inn at Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz, California, from June II to 15, 1989. The all-star cast of attendees are listed as authors in the Table of Contents of this book (see p. V), except for Soo Hong Chew and Amos Tversky. The purpose of the conference, and of National Science Foundation Grant No. SES-8823012 that supported it, was to confront proponents of new generalized theories of utility with leading decision analysts com mitted to the implementation, in practice, of the more traditional theory that these new theories reject. That traditional model is variously iden tified in this book as expected utility or subjectively expected utility maximization (EU or SEU for short) and variously attributed to von Neumann and Morgenstern or Savage. I had feared that the conference might consist of an acrimonious debate between Olympian normative theorists uninterested in what people actually do and behavioral modelers obsessed with the cognitive illusions and uninterested in helping people to make wise decisions. I was entirely wrong. The conferees, in two dramatic straw votes at the open ing session, unanimously endorsed traditional SEU as the appropriate normative model and unanimously agreed that people don't act as that model requires. (These votes had a profound impact on my thinking; detail about them and about that impact is located in Chapter 10.
Download or read book History of Marginal Utility Theory written by Emil Kauder and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author blends historical narrative with a topical approach and discusses such aspects of the theory as measurement, total value, and imputation. Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Decision Aids for Selection Problems written by David L. Olson and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most important tasks faced by decision-makers in business and government is that of selection. Selection problems are challenging in that they require the balancing of multiple, often conflicting, criteria. In recent years, a number of interesting decision aids have become available to assist in such decisions. The aim of this book is to provide a comparative survey of many of the decision aids currently available. The first chapters present general ideas which underpin the methodologies used to design these aids. Subsequent chapters then focus on specific decision aids and demonstrate some of the software which implement these ideas. A final chapter provides a comparative analysis of their strengths and weaknesses.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics written by Sherry Glied and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 992 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics provides an accessible and authoritative guide to health economics, intended for scholars and students in the field, as well as those in adjacent disciplines including health policy and clinical medicine. The chapters stress the direct impact of health economics reasoning on policy and practice, offering readers an introduction to the potential reach of the discipline. Contributions come from internationally-recognized leaders in health economics and reflect the worldwide reach of the discipline. Authoritative, but non-technical, the chapters place great emphasis on the connections between theory and policy-making, and develop the contributions of health economics to problems arising in a variety of institutional contexts, from primary care to the operations of health insurers. The volume addresses policy concerns relevant to health systems in both developed and developing countries. It takes a broad perspective, with relevance to systems with single or multi-payer health insurance arrangements, and to those relying predominantly on user charges; contributions are also included that focus both on medical care and on non-medical factors that affect health. Each chapter provides a succinct summary of the current state of economic thinking in a given area, as well as the author's unique perspective on issues that remain open to debate. The volume presents a view of health economics as a vibrant and continually advancing field, highlighting ongoing challenges and pointing to new directions for further progress.
Download or read book Microeconomics For Dummies written by Lynne Pepall and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-01-14 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your no-nonsense guide to microeconomics The study of microeconomics isn't for the faint of heart. Fortunately, Microeconomics For Dummies is here to help make this tough topic accessible to the masses. If you're a business or finance major looking to supplement your college-level microeconomics coursework—or a professional who wants to expand your general economics knowledge into the microeconomics area—this friendly and authoritative guide will take your comprehension of the subject from micro to macro in no time! Cutting through confusing jargon and complemented with tons of step-by-step instructions and explanations, it helps you discover how real individuals and businesses use microeconomics to analyze trends from the bottom up in order to make smart decisions. Snagging a job as an economist is fiercely competitive—and highly lucrative. Having microeconomics under your belt as you work toward completing your degree will put you head and shoulders above the competition and set you on the course for career advancement once you land a job. So what are you waiting for? Analyze small-scale market mechanisms Determine the elasticity of products within the market systems Decide upon an efficient way to allocate goods and services Score higher in your microeconomics class Everything you need to make microeconomics your minion is a page away!
Download or read book Utility Maximization Choice and Preference written by Fuad Aleskerov and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-18 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The utility maximization paradigm forms the basis of many economic, psychological, cognitive and behavioral models. However, numerous examples have revealed the deficiencies of the concept. This book helps to overcome those deficiencies by taking into account insensitivity of measurement threshold and context of choice. The second edition has been updated to include the most recent developments and a new chapter on classic and new results for infinite sets.
Download or read book New Methods of Measuring Marginal Utility written by Ragnar Frisch and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Radical Uncertainty Decision Making Beyond the Numbers written by John Kay and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much economic advice is bogus quantification, warn two leading experts in this essential book, now with a preface on COVID-19. Invented numbers offer a false sense of security; we need instead robust narratives that give us the confidence to manage uncertainty. “An elegant and careful guide to thinking about personal and social economics, especially in a time of uncertainty. The timing is impeccable." — Christine Kenneally, New York Times Book Review Some uncertainties are resolvable. The insurance industry’s actuarial tables and the gambler’s roulette wheel both yield to the tools of probability theory. Most situations in life, however, involve a deeper kind of uncertainty, a radical uncertainty for which historical data provide no useful guidance to future outcomes. Radical uncertainty concerns events whose determinants are insufficiently understood for probabilities to be known or forecasting possible. Before President Barack Obama made the fateful decision to send in the Navy Seals, his advisers offered him wildly divergent estimates of the odds that Osama bin Laden would be in the Abbottabad compound. In 2000, no one—not least Steve Jobs—knew what a smartphone was; how could anyone have predicted how many would be sold in 2020? And financial advisers who confidently provide the information required in the standard retirement planning package—what will interest rates, the cost of living, and your state of health be in 2050?—demonstrate only that their advice is worthless. The limits of certainty demonstrate the power of human judgment over artificial intelligence. In most critical decisions there can be no forecasts or probability distributions on which we might sensibly rely. Instead of inventing numbers to fill the gaps in our knowledge, we should adopt business, political, and personal strategies that will be robust to alternative futures and resilient to unpredictable events. Within the security of such a robust and resilient reference narrative, uncertainty can be embraced, because it is the source of creativity, excitement, and profit.
Download or read book Valuing Health written by Daniel M. Hausman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Valuing Health provides a philosophically sophisticated overview of generic health measurement systems, which clarifies their value commitments and criticizes their dependence on preference surveys to assign values to health states. In it, philosopher Daniel M. Hausman argues that the public value of health states depends on the activity limits and suffering that health states impose.
Download or read book The Pursuit of Happiness written by Louis Narens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilitarianism began as a movement for social reform that changed the world, based on the ideal of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. There is a tendency to enter into debates for and against the ethical doctrine of Utilitarianism without a clear understanding of its basic concepts. The Pursuit of Happiness now offers a rigorous account of the foundations of Utilitarianism, and vividly sets out possible ways forward for its future development. To understand Utilitarianism, we must understand utility: how is it to be measured, and how the aggregate utility of a group can be understood. Louis Narens and Brian Skyrms, respectively a cognitive scientist and a philosopher, pursue these questions by adopting both formal and historical methods, examining theories of measuring utility from Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the Utilitarian movement, to the present day, taking in psychophysics, positivism, measurement theory, meaningfulness, neuropsychology, representation theorems, and the dynamics of formation of conventions. On this basis, Narens and Skyrms argue that a meaningful form of Utilitarianism that can coordinate action in social groups is possible through interpersonal comparison and the formation of conventions.
Download or read book The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values written by A. Myrick Freeman and published by Resources for the Future. This book was released on 2003 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Non-market valuation is becoming increasingly accepted as an evaluative tool of economics related to environmental and resource protection. Freeman (economics, Bowdoin College) presents an overview of the literature, introducing the principal methods and techniques of resource valuation. Chapters cover the measurement of welfare changes, revealed and stated preference models, nonuse models, aggregation of values across time, environmental quality as factor input, longevity and health valuation, property value models, hedonic wage models, and recreational uses of natural resource systems. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Download or read book Embedded Case Study Methods written by Roland W. Scholz and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2002 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an embedded case study, the starting and end point is the comprehension of the case as a whole in its real-world context. This book bridges the gap between quantitative and qualitative approaches to complex problems when using this methodology.
Download or read book Design A Very Short Introduction written by John Heskett and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will transform the way you think about design by showing how integral it is to our daily lives, from the spoon we use to eat our breakfast cereal to the medical equipment used to save lives. John Heskett goes beyond style and taste to look at how different cultures and individuals personalise objects.
Download or read book Advances in Behavioral Economics written by Colin F. Camerer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, behavioral economics has become virtually mainstream.
Download or read book Intermediate Microeconomics written by Patrick M. Emerson and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
