labour economics: across standards of living

[gusl]

If an individual relocates from a high-paying environment (musicians in the NL) to a low-paying one (musicians in Brazil), it is conceivable that they:
* work more, in order to make (almost) the same amount of money.
* work less, because the small earnings are not worth the effort

You will work more if:
* you are desperate, and don't want to cut back on your expenses.
* you don't mind working very much.

You will work less if:
* you are financially comfortable, or don't mind going into debt.
* you don't mind cutting back your expenses.
* you are "proud".


The perception of the value of money should depend only on projected future income vs expenses. But I imagine that in practice, past experience will have a strong effect, because of the way things are framed.

Assume Income is proportial to Work.
Assume Utility is Work Utility (UW) + Income Utility (UI is +, UI' is +, UI'' is - )

hm... Can anyone recommend a nice data_set -> graphics generator for Linux?

Comments

[trufflesniffer.livejournal.com]

You're aware of the principle of the diminishing marginal utility of wealth, aren't you?
Are you aware of the work of Richard Layard and Andrew Clark? They've both done quite a lot of empirical investigation into this subject.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

You're aware of the principle of the diminishing marginal utility of wealth, aren't you?
Sure. That's what the "Income Utility (UI is +, UI' is +, UI'' is - )" means.

Are you aware of the work of Richard Layard and Andrew Clark?
No. Anything especially interesting?

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

for simple stuff, gnuplot.

if you want to spend a year in a monastary and come out being able to plot the fuck out of anything, R.

[trufflesniffer.livejournal.com]

Richard Layard works at the Centre for Economic Policy at the LSE.
He's a self-described "neo-Benthamite Utilitarian" and published a book called Happiness:Lessons from a New Science where he attempts to show empirically which sorts of things tend to make people happier, and which don't, and comes up with some generative mechanisms and explanations for the diminishing marginal utility of wealth.
He did a series of three public lectures a couple of years ago - available someone on the LSE site - which essentially contain all the material in the book, and possibly a bit more.

Andrew Clark wrote some interesting papers on the subject of wealth, employment, social status and well-being a few years ago. I have a couple of papers, sent me by a behavioural economist I spoke to a few weeks back, which I'll send you if you want. One's on the relationship between wealth and happiness, the other's on the effects of 'social norms' on how being employed or unemployed affects one's wellbeing (in brief: for any social group, those who are unemployed are unhappier than those employed, however, the negative effects of unemployment are for those in social groups with low levels of unemployment, and lowest when one lives in a social group with high unemployment).

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

(in brief: for any social group, those who are unemployed are unhappier than those employed, however, the negative effects of unemployment are for those in social groups with low levels of unemployment, and lowest when one lives in a social group with high unemployment).

come again? Are the negative effects of unemployment worse in high-employment or low-employment social groups?

[trufflesniffer.livejournal.com]

sorry - missed the most importat word: "highest"

heuristically: If you're not working and most of your peers are working, it feels worse than if you're not working and most of your peers aren't working.
...which I guess is common sense.