Quantitative Economics: Nov, 2017, Volume 8, Issue 3

Measuring the willingness‐to‐pay for others' consumption: An application to joint decisions of children

Sabrina Bruyneel, Laurens Cherchye, Sam Cosaert, Bram De Rock, Siegfried Dewitte

We propose a method to quantify other‐regarding preferences in group decisions. Our method is based on revealed preference theory. It measures willingness‐to‐pay for others' consumption and willingness‐to‐pay for equality in consumption by evaluating consumption externalities in monetary terms. We introduce an altruism parameter and an inequality aversion parameter. Each parameter defines a continuum of models characterized by varying degrees of externalities. We study the empirical performance of our method through a simulation analysis, in which we also investigate the impact of measurement error and increased sample size. Finally, we use our method to analyze decisions made by dyads of children in an experimental setting. We find that children's decisions are particularly characterized by varying levels of altruism. We relate this heterogeneity across children to age, gender, and the degree of friendship in dyads.

Consumption externalities altruism inequality aversion revealed preferences children's consumption D11 D12 C14

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March 5, 2024

Announcing the New Journal Editors

The terms of the Editors of the Econometric Society's three journals end June 30, 2025. We are pleased to announce the incoming Editors and to thank the outgoing Editors for their excellent and continuing service.

Econometrica: Since 2019, Guido Imbens has served as the 14th Editor of Econometrica. On July 1, 2025, Marina Halac will become the Editor.

Quantitative Economics: Stéphane Bonhomme has been the Editor of Quantitative Economics since 2021. His successor will be Bernard Salanié.

Theoretical Economics: The Editor of Theoretical Economics since 2021 has been Simon Board. Taking over for him in July 2025 will be Federico Echenique.

Guido, Stéphane, and Simon have been outstanding Editors. We are grateful to them for the work they have done and will continue to do, and we look forward to further congratulating them next year. We believe Marina, Bernard, and Federico will be outstanding successors and we thank them in advance for their service.

Finally, we are grateful to Larry Samuelson for chairing all three search committees, and we thank the search committee members for their hard and fruitful work:

Econometrica: Christian Dustmann, Lars Hansen, Alessandro Lizzeri, George Mailath, Ariel Pakes, Helene Rey, and Elie Tamer.

QE: Kate Ho, Michael Keane, Felix Kubler, Whitney Newey, and Frank Schorfheide.

TE: Jeff Ely, Johannes Horner, Gilat Levy, Meg Meyer, and Ran Spiegler.

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