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Contribution Details

Type Working Paper
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Beyond Outcomes: Measuring Procedural Utility (final version)
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Bruno Frey
  • Alois Stutzer
Language
  • English
Institution University of Zurich
Series Name Working paper series / Institute for Empirical Research in Economics
Number No. 76
ISSN 1424-0459
Date 2004
Abstract Text "People not only obtain utility from actual outcomes but also from the conditions which lead to these outcomes. The paper proposes an economic concept of this notion of procedural utility. Preferences beyond outcome can be manifold. We distinguish proceduralnutility people get from institutions as such, i.e. from how allocative and redistributive decisions are taken, procedural utility from activities towards which people have an intrinsic attitude and procedural utility from the way being treated in interaction with other people. In an empirical application, it is studied whether people gain procedural utility fromnparticipating in the political decision-making process itself, irrespective of the outcome.nUtility is measured by individuals’ reported subjective well-being. We find that participation rights provide procedural utility in terms of a feeling of self-determination and influence. In contrast, actual participation and use of participation rights does not."
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