Measuring well-being and lives worth living

Article dans une revue: We study the measurement of well-being when individuals have heterogeneous preferences, including dierent conceptions of a life worth living. When individuals dier in the conception of a life worth living, the equivalent income can regard an individual whose life is not worth living as being better o than an individual whose life is worth living. In order to avoid this paradoxical result, we reexamine the ethical foundations of well-being measures in such a way as to take into account heterogeneity in the conception of a life worth living. We derive, from simple axioms, an alternative measure of well-being, which is an equivalent income net of the income threshold making lifetime neutral. That new well-being index always ranks an individual whose life is not worth living as worse-o than an individual with a life worth living.

Auteur(s)

Marc Fleurbaey, Gregory Ponthiere

Revue
  • Economic Theory
Date de publication
  • 2023
Mots-clés JEL
I31 J17
Mots-clés
  • Well-being
  • Measurement
  • Equivalent income
  • Lifetime
  • Value of life
Version
  • 1