IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/esrepo/301038.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are people’s economic wants insatiable? Examining the psychology of a basic economic belief

Author

Listed:
  • Bain, Paul G.
  • Bongiorno, Renata

Abstract

Despite widespread claims by economists that humans have unlimited economic wants, evidence for this psychological claim is sparse. Here we focus on a common interpretation of unlimited wants as insatiable – unfulfilled wants persist even at higher incomes because new wants always emerge to replace satisfied wants. We analyzed a representative 16-year multi-wave US dataset (N=11865) previously used to show that economic wants are insatiable based on highly selective subsets of these data. Using the full dataset shows that having insatiable wants is far from universal – about a third reported no unfulfilled economic wants, and on average people with higher incomes had fewer wants. Additional analyses showed that many people did not aspire to wealth in their conception of “the good life”, and the extent of unfulfilled wants varied over time. This assumption about universal human nature is not supported, calling into question the theories and policies it informs.

Suggested Citation

  • Bain, Paul G. & Bongiorno, Renata, 2024. "Are people’s economic wants insatiable? Examining the psychology of a basic economic belief," EconStor Research Reports 301038, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esrepo:301038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/301038/1/Bain_Bongiorno_insatiable_wants_Econstor.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Easterlin, Richard A, 2001. "Income and Happiness: Towards an Unified Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 465-484, July.
    2. Richard A. Easterlin, 2021. "An Economist’s Lessons on Happiness," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-61962-6, July.
    3. Paul G. Bain & Renata Bongiorno, 2022. "Evidence from 33 countries challenges the assumption of unlimited wants," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(8), pages 669-673, August.
    4. Easterlin, Richard A., 2005. "A puzzle for adaptive theory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 513-521, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Georgellis, Yannis & Tsitsianis, Nicholas & Yin, Ya Ping, 2009. "Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 42-51, February.
    2. Silvia Maja Melzer & Ruud J. Muffels, 2012. "Migrant's Pursuit of Happiness: The Impact of Adaption, Social Comparison and Relative Deprivation; Evidence from a 'Natural' Experiment," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 448, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Carolina Castilla, 2012. "Subjective well-being and reference-dependence: Insights from Mexico," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(2), pages 219-238, June.
    4. Francesco Ferrante, 2009. "Education, Aspirations and Life Satisfaction," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 542-562, November.
    5. Yamamura, Eiji, 2013. "Trial experience, satisfaction and incentive to bring another lawsuit: Does aspiration level influence winners and losers?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 125-131.
    6. Francesco Ferrante, 2017. "Great Expectations: The Unintended Consequences of Educational Choices," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 745-767, March.
    7. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Natural disasters and their long-term effect on happiness: the case of the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake," MPRA Paper 37505, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Roberta Distante, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being, Income and Relative Concerns in the UK," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 81-105, August.
    9. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2006. "Income and happiness: Evidence, explanations and economic implications," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590436, HAL.
    10. Frijters, Paul & Clark, Andrew E. & Krekel, Christian & Layard, Richard, 2020. "A happy choice: wellbeing as the goal of government," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 126-165, July.
    11. Leonardo Becchetti & Pierluigi Conzo, 2018. "Preferences for Well-Being and Life Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 775-805, April.
    12. Oswald, Andrew J. & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2008. "Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1061-1077, June.
    13. Nils Braakmann, 2014. "The consequences of own and spousal disability on labor market outcomes and subjective well-being: evidence from Germany," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 717-736, December.
    14. Knight, John & Gunatilaka, Ramani, 2012. "Income, aspirations and the Hedonic Treadmill in a poor society," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 67-81.
    15. David Alexander Clark, 2011. "Adaptation and development: issues, evidence and policy relevance," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 15911, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    16. David A. Clark, 2007. "Adaptation, Poverty and Well-Being: Some Issues and Observations with Special Reference to the Capability Approach and Development Studies," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-081, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. Georgellis, Yannis & Gregoriou, Andros & Tsitsianis, Nikolaos, 2008. "Adaptation towards reference values: A non-linear perspective," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 768-781, September.
    18. Daniela Federici & Valentino Parisi & Francesco Ferrante, 2023. "Aspiration bias and job satisfaction of young Italian graduates," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 40(2), pages 643-677, July.
    19. Anton Nivorozhkin & Ludmila Nivorozhkina & Kamila Abazieva, 2013. "Expenditures and Income Adequacy at Retirement," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 2017-2023.
    20. Senik, Claudia, 2009. "Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 408-424, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unlimited wants; insatiability;

    JEL classification:

    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:esrepo:301038. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.