Can Marginal Rates of Substitution Be Inferred from Happiness Data? Evidence from Residency Choices

Daniel J Benjamin, Ori Heffetz, Miles S Kimball, Alex Rees-Jones

Research output: Working paper/preprintWorking paper

Abstract

We survey 561 students from U.S. medical schools shortly after they submit choice rankings over residencies to the National Resident Matching Program. We elicit (a) these choice rankings, (b) anticipated subjective well-being (SWB) rankings, and (c) expected features of the residencies (such as prestige). We find substantial differences between choice and anticipated-SWB rankings in the implied tradeoffs between residency features. In our data, evaluative SWB measures (life satisfaction and Cantril's ladder) imply tradeoffs closer to choice than does affective happiness (even time-integrated), and as close as do multi-measure SWB indices. We discuss implications for using SWB data in applied work.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationCambridge, Mass
PublisherNational Bureau of Economic Research
Number of pages43
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

Publication series

NameNBER working paper series
PublisherNational Bureau of Economic Research
Volumeno. w18927

Bibliographical note

March 2013.

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