Are One Man’s Rags Another Man’s Riches? Identifying Adaptive Expectations using Panel Data
Are One Man’s Rags Another Man’s Riches? Identifying Adaptive Expectations using Panel Data
复制标题
使用面板数据确定一个人的破烂是另一个人的财富吗？
DOI：
10.1007/s11205-005-6519-y
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发表时间：
2005
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
T. Burchardt
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
T. Burchardt
Sen和Nussbaum经常引用的从效用度量转向能力框架的动机之一是对适应性偏好或条件期望的关注。如果效用与愿望或期望的满足有关，如果这些愿望或期望受到个人以前的剥夺或财富经验的影响，那么效用就不能提供独立于初始分配的评估福祉、平等或社会正义的基础。本文利用英国家庭面板调查的十年面板数据，根据个人自身的经验研究适应过程，有助于识别适应性期望。对于具有给定收入水平的个人，在时间t对财务状况的主观评估是根据个人在过去一到九年的收入轨迹进行比较的。描述性统计之后是多变量分析，引入对需求变化（家庭规模和组成、残疾）和可能的社会参考群体（例如种族和就业状况）的控制。固定效应回归允许满意度尺度的个体差异。结果显示，与前一年相比，收入下降的人的满意度比收入稳定的人低，这表明可能会对以前的经历进行主观评估。令人惊讶的是，那些经历过收入增长的人也不太满意。这表明，收入不能很好地代表满意度，但它并不能为短期内适应的存在提供确凿的证据。从长期来看，那些经历过收入下降的人比那些有固定收入的人更不满意，而那些经历过收入上升的人并不比那些有固定收入的人更满意。这表明，在较长时期内，对收入变化的适应是不对称的：人们适应收入增长，但不太适应收入下降。本文的结论是，收入满意度受客观环境的影响，并以复杂的方式受客观环境变化的影响。特别是，适应收入增加的过程掩盖了个人结果的长期差异，并使对福祉的主观评估成为判断不平等或社会正义的有缺陷的基础。客观的规范性标准，例如能力框架所提供的标准，避免社会评价受到个人过去经验的不当影响。
One of the motivations frequently cited by Sen and Nussbaum for moving away from a utility metric towards a capabilities framework is a concern about adaptive preferences or conditioned expectations. If utility is related to the satisfaction of aspirations or expectations, and if these are affected by the individual’s previous experience of deprivation or wealth, then utility cannot provide a basis for assessing well-being, equality or social justice which is independent of the initial distribution. This paper contributes to the identification of adaptive expectations by using ten years of panel data from the British Household Panel Survey to study the process of adaptation based on the individual’s own previous experience. Subjective assessments of financial well-being at time t, for individuals with a given income level, are compared according to the income trajectory of the individual over the previous one to nine years. Descriptive statistics are followed by multivariate analysis, introducing controls for changes in need (family size and composition, disability), and possible social reference groups (for example, ethnicity and employment status). Fixed effects regressions allow for individual variation in the scaling of satisfaction. The results show that year on year, individuals who have experienced a fall in income since the previous year are less satisfied than those who have a steady income, suggesting that subjective assessments may be made in comparison with previous experience. Surprisingly, individuals who have experienced an increase in income are also less satisfied. This suggests that income is a poor proxy for satisfaction but it does not provide firm evidence for the existence of adaptation over the short term. Over a longer period, those who have experienced falling incomes are less satisfied than those who have had constant income, while those who have experienced rising incomes are no more satisfied than those who have had constant incomes. This suggests that over a longer period, adaptation to changes in income is asymmetric: people adapt to rising incomes but less so falling incomes. The paper concludes that satisfaction with income is influenced by objective circumstances, and to changes in objective circumstances, in complex ways. In particular, the process of adaptation to rises in income masks long-term differences in outcomes for individuals and makes subjective assessments of well-being a flawed basis for judgements of inequality or social justice. An objective normative standard, such as is offered by the capabilities framework, avoids social evaluations being unduly influenced by individuals’ past experiences.