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美国经济学留学生课程作业辅导-Consumer Behavior’s Relation to Happiness Economics
1.0 Introduction
Happiness economics was put forward by Richard Easterlin, this Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. Since 1970s, happiness economics began concerning by Richard Easterlin and then it got the whole world’s attention. This short paper focuses on analyzing the relationship between consumer behavior and happiness economics. Totally there are four main parts of this paper: first two parts are briefly introductions about consumer behavior and happiness economics. Core content is in part three, which is about the consumer behavior’s relation to happiness economics; finally and the last part is a simple conclusion. Main relations of consumer behavior to happiness economics can be stated as: consumer preferences reflect the inner psychology demand of consumers, which directly determines the happiness feeling. Realization of consumer preferences are consumer choices, those are also determined by budget constraints and actual income. This means when income reaches certain level, happiness produced by consuming is limited. This means when economy grows to certain level, suppliers of the market should consider about how to make consumers feel happy in the consuming process. 快乐经济学被李察Easterlin提出，这个美国经济学协会荣誉会员。自20世纪70年代以来，关于幸福经济学开始由李察伊斯特林并得到了全世界的关注。本文着重分析了消费行为之间的关系和幸福经济学。本文共有四个主要部分：第一部分简要介绍两个关于消费者行为和幸福经济学。核心内容是在三部分，这是对消费者行为之间的关系，幸福经济学；最后，最后一部分是简单的结论。主要的消费行为关系到幸福经济学可以表述为：消费者偏好反映了消费者的内在心理需求，它直接决定了幸福的感觉。消费者的喜好，实现消费者的选择，这也取决于预算约束和实际收入。这意味着，当收入达到一定水平，由消费幸福是有限的。这意味着，当经济发展到一定程度，对市场的供应商应考虑如何使消费者感到高兴，在消费过程。
2.0 Consumer Behavior
Consumer behavior is the major, also the basic driving force of economy. It refers to the purchasing activities of consumers, which covers the process of finding, selecting, purchasing, utilizing and evaluating needed goods and services. Consumer behaviors include three distinct steps: consumer preferences, budget constraints and consumer choices. Consumption motives' formation is the core issue of consumer behavior. Consumer preference plays decisive role in the consuming process under constrain of budget constraints. But consumer behavior does be the final result of different internal and external factors' combined contribution. These factors include internal psychology requirement, income level, budget, products or services' quality, substitute goods and so on. Consumers' final choice is the direct result of consumer behaviors. PPT in the hand explains and describes consumer behavior as one theory which focuses on analyzing the distribution and allocation of gains among different services and goods under the pursuing of wellbeing maximization. This tells that one main objective of consuming behavior is happiness. Consumer satisfaction is another factor of consumer behaviors which affect happiness. This has been proved by one research in USA, which compares different levels of satisfaction with income. USA’s researching tells that along with income’s increasing, happiness is also advanced, but at diminishing rate. When marginal costs equals to marginal benefits, satisfaction will be maximized.
3.0 Happiness Economics
Economy is one rational subject, while happiness is emotional. Economic always refer to one country, one location or one individual’s wealth situation; but happiness is just the expression toward individual. Under the developing and growing of economy, happiness has not increased. For so many countries, along with the improvement of living standard, happiness continually dropped down. Reading and understanding happiness from the aspect of economics, this is happiness economics. Quantifying happiness seems to be one job hard to do, while in 1970s, Richard Easterlin put forward the definition of happiness index and created happiness economics. Core value of Richard Easterlin’s happiness economics can be stated as Easterlin Paradox, which can be stated as with higher incomes cannot make people be much happier (1974). This conclusion is founded on the international comparisons of different countries. For Richard Easterlin, absolute wealth is not the only one determined reason affecting happiness; happiness depends more on the relative wealth toward the around people. This is why people living in developed countries do not feel much happier than people in developing countries. From this aspect, economy growing and wealth increasing should not be the only thing government or individual concerned. Government of one nation should perfect social welfare and lower the inequality situation of whole society (Andrew E. Clark et al, 2008).
4.0 Relations of Consumer Behavior to Happiness Economics
Consumer behavior connects great market of society and individual consumers. For the author of this paper, relations of consumer behavior to happiness economics can be understood from three aspects: consumer preferences directly reflects consumers’ inner expectation; consumer choice is the final satisfying situation of consumer preferences and it determines the happiness gaining situation of consumers from one consuming experience; consumer satisfaction describes the satisfaction situation of consumer toward the purchasing experiences. It is the final realization of happiness from one consuming experience.
4.1 Consumer Preferences’ inner Reflection toward happiness
In subject of psychology, preferences are always read as individual attitudes to specific objects, which can affect the decision-making (Lichtenstein & Slovic, 2006). It is also understood as evaluation judgement by Scherer (2005). Generally speaking it is the direct reflection of individual’s inner like and dislike. If preferences can be well achieved, undoubtedly individuals will feel happy. From the aspect of consumer behavior, consumer preference is defined as one distinct step. Only with preference toward specific goods, consumers will take the purchasing activity. From this aspect, as one step of consumer behavior, consumer preferences reflect the inner expectation toward happiness. The realization situation of consumer preference will affect the happiness’s achieving level.
4.2 Consumer Choice’s Expression about Happiness
Even one consumer likes one goods very much, the final choice might not be that goods; since consumer behavior is also constrained by the budget and income level. No matter how much one individual consumer likes the goods, if he or she does not have enough money, consumer behavior cannot be completed or successfully finished. This means only preference cannot determine the happiness level from one purchasing experience. Final realization situation of happiness is determined by consumer choice, since final choice stands for the purchasing behavior’s achieving situation. From this aspect, consumer choice expresses the happiness status of consumer in purchasing process. One good choice should meet two basic conditions in the consuming process: locating the budget line and also the preferred combination between goods and services. Choice is also the direct reflection about consumer satisfaction.
4.3 Consumer Satisfaction and Consumer’s Happiness
Consumer satisfaction is one concept in the field of social-economic subject. It reflects the perception of consumer toward the purchasing and consuming process of one goods or a set of goods/services. Through comparing with different classes’ life across income in United States, it is got that along with the income’s increasing, happiness also increases, but in diminishing speed (PPT). This means satisfaction situation of consumer does affect consumer happiness greatly. For achieving high level happiness, consumer satisfaction must reach high level.
The above analysis is about one specific consuming process, not a set of consumer behavior, also not the consumer behavior in a long time. Just as the attitude of Elizabeth Segal, human desires are infinite and happiness from consumption is short-lived. One specific consumption behavior might bring happiness to consumers in a short period. For living happily in a long time or in the whole life, people should not only rely it on consumption.
5.0 Conclusion
Summing up all the above statement, it can be got that there is certain positive relationship between consumer behavior and happiness economics. Daily consuming behaviors can reflect the pursuing of human being toward happiness, but “happiness would be shorted-lived”. For suppliers of the market, they should consider about how to provide happy consuming and how to produce more happiness in the process of consuming. This would be a great approach to improve competitive advantage and for consumers, this also can help to improve living standard. 总结以上声明，它可以得到有一定积极的消费行为之间的关系和幸福经济学。日常消费行为能反映人对幸福的追求，但“幸福是短暂的”。对于市场的供应商，他们应该考虑如何提供快乐的消费和如何在消费过程中产生更多的幸福。这将是提升企业竞争优势的重要途径，对于消费者来说，这也有助于提高生活水平。#p#分页标题#e#
6.0 References
Elizabeth Segal. (2007). What Price, Happiness? Retrieved online, from: http://www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/trojan_family/winter07/happiness.html
Lichtenstein, S., & Slovic, P. (2006). The construction of preference. New York: Cambridge University Press
Scherer, K.R. (2005). What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Social Science Information, Vol.44, P695-P729.
Richard Easterlin http://www.ukassignment.org/ (1974). Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence. In Paul A. David and Melvin W. Reder, eds., Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in www.ukassignment.org Honor of Moses Abramovitz, New York: Academic Press
Andrew E. Clark, Paul Frijters, and Michael A. Shields (2008). Relative Income, Happiness, and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles. Journal of Economic Literature, Vol.46, Issue1, P95-P144
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