Why do people keep saying things like this? Intuition suggests, and research confirms, that there’s a major diminishing returns factor involved with money, and acquiring lots of it can actually make people unhappy.
I want more money only to a degree, then I wouldn’t want more. My utility function does not assign a positive, set value to money.
and acquiring lots of it can actually make people unhappy.
I was with you on diminishing returns, but that doesn’t contradict the original claim. I haven’t seen reliable research suggesting that more money actively makes people unhappy (in a broad-ish, ceteris paribus sense, so that e.g. having to work more to get it doesn’t count as “money making you unhappy”). Could you point me to what you’re referring to?
Theoretically you should be able to assign marginal values, like your cat getting sick is worth $X, good weather for your barbecue party is worth $Y and so on—these being marginal values. As long as the numbers are pretty small diminishing utilities shouldn’t cause any problems.
Why do people keep saying things like this? Intuition suggests, and research confirms, that there’s a major diminishing returns factor involved with money, and acquiring lots of it can actually make people unhappy.
I want more money only to a degree, then I wouldn’t want more. My utility function does not assign a positive, set value to money.
I was with you on diminishing returns, but that doesn’t contradict the original claim. I haven’t seen reliable research suggesting that more money actively makes people unhappy (in a broad-ish, ceteris paribus sense, so that e.g. having to work more to get it doesn’t count as “money making you unhappy”). Could you point me to what you’re referring to?
Theoretically you should be able to assign marginal values, like your cat getting sick is worth $X, good weather for your barbecue party is worth $Y and so on—these being marginal values. As long as the numbers are pretty small diminishing utilities shouldn’t cause any problems.