Decision over Time as a By-Product of a Measure of Utility: A Reappraisal of Paul Samuelson's "A Note on Measurement of Utility" (1937).

This contribution aims to highlight a neglected aspect of Samuelson's famous 1937 paper "A Note on Measurement of Utility". Although the 1937 paper is usually regarded as the foundation of discounted utility theory, and rightly so, it is primarily concerned with utility measurement and deals only in...

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Publicado en:European Journal of the History of Economic Thought Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 438 - 455
Autor principal: Fiévet, Amélie
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jun2022
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Decision over Time as a By-Product of a Measure of Utility: A Reappraisal of Paul Samuelson's "A Note on Measurement of Utility" (1937).
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        au: Fiévet, Amélie
      su:
        Samuelson, Paul A. (Paul Anthony), 1915-2009
        Rational choice theory
        Utility theory
        Utility functions
        Cognitive ability
        Measurement
      sug:
        subj:
          Samuelson, Paul A. (Paul Anthony), 1915-2009
          Rational choice theory
          Utility theory
          Utility functions
          Cognitive ability
          Measurement
      keyword:
        discounted utility
        measure of utility
        Paul Samuelson
      ab: This contribution aims to highlight a neglected aspect of Samuelson's famous 1937 paper "A Note on Measurement of Utility". Although the 1937 paper is usually regarded as the foundation of discounted utility theory, and rightly so, it is primarily concerned with utility measurement and deals only indirectly with decision over time – intertemporal issues appearing as a by-product of the realisation of a unique utility measure. But the treatment of discounted utility in turn influenced Samuelson's understanding of cardinality. Cardinality appears here as the result of a cognitive ability that manifests when agents face a decision experiment over time in which they are compelled to cardinalize their utility functions. The result is the weak plausibility of cardinality in a more general context, such that, contrary to the usual views, we may say that Samuelson's ordinalist approach was already in the making in 1937.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
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    language: English
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