Accounting for TastesHarvard University Press, 1 juil. 2009 - 292 pages Economists generally accept as a given the old adage that there's no accounting for tastes. Nobel Laureate Gary Becker disagrees, and in this lively new collection he confronts the problem of preferences and values: how they are formed and how they affect our behavior. He argues that past experiences and social influences form two basic capital stocks: personal and social. He then applies these concepts to assessing the effects of advertising, the power of peer pressure, the nature of addiction, and the function of habits. This framework promises to illuminate many other realms of social life previously considered off-limits by economists. |
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adjacent complementarity advertising analysis approach assume assumption Becker bequests Chapter choices cigarette coefficient commodity constraint consumers consumption capital contributions current consumption current price demand curve demand function depends discount factor divorce drugs economic economists elasticity of demand endogenous equal equation equilibrium estimates example excise tax explain firm first-order condition future consumption future prices future utilities George Stigler given greater habits harmful human capital implies increase individuals induced investments lower marginal cost marginal revenue marginal utility maximize negative norms optimal output parents partly past consumption percent personal capital positive preferences price changes price effects price elasticity raise rational addiction reduce Richard Posner shadow price short-run smoking social capital social environment social income social interactions stable sumers tastes theory tion transfers unstable steady upper class utility function utility of wealth variables welfare zero