Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/319110 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17841
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman's last published paper is an adversarial collaboration in which he and Matthew Killingsworth reconcile conflicting empirical results from their previous research on income and reported happiness, with Barbara Mellers as a facilitator. The empirical results use quantile regression to allow for measured income heterogeneity effects that include notch points in the estimated marginal utilities of income. Our analysis examines Kahneman's last paper's conceptual innovations and challenges to assumptions about diminishing marginal utility of income. We review his contributions to emotional well-being measurement and employ a novel AI-simulated dialogue between the late Amos Tversky and Sir Angus Deaton to explore interdisciplinary perspectives on the findings. Our paper demonstrates how Kahneman's final research undermines recent arguments for incorporating income redistribution simply into benefit-cost analysis, suggesting that such objectives remain better addressed through fiscal policy rather than regulatory interventions. His final published work exemplifies Kahneman's commitment to empirical precision and theoretical flexibility, even when contradicting his earlier conclusions.
Subjects: 
simulated dialogue with AI
social welfare weights
income satiation
well-being
adversarial collaboration
quantile regression
marginal utility
JEL: 
D12
D61
H23
I31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
444.46 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.