从显示性偏好到描述性偏好再到幸福指数——公共品价值评估的几种研究方法述评

From Revealed Preference,Stated Preference to Happiness Data: The Research Method Review of Public Goods Valuation

评估地方公共品和其他非市场性产品的价值是目前应用经济学面临的巨大挑战之一。尽管公共品理论自保罗·萨缪尔森(1954,1955)的开创性文章后迅速发展,但对公共品价值的实证测量研究直到最近才受到更多的重视。根据萨缪尔森的公共产品理论,纯粹的公共产品或劳务应该保证每个人消费这种物品或劳务不会导致别人对该种产品或劳务的消费减少,其效用的不可分割性、消费的非竞争性和受益的非排他性特征使其在供给过程中不可避免的存在"搭便车"问题,这也使得公共品的价值评估一直成为学术界研究的热点。本文旨在厘清学界对公共品价值评估的各种研究方法,包括传统的显示性偏好法、描述性偏好法以及新兴的幸福指数法,并在此基础上系统地提炼当下热点议题,为未来的进一步研究指明方向。

Evaluation of local public goods and other non - marketing products is one of the big challenges for the applied economics. Although the public goods theory has developed rapidly since Paul Samuelson＇ s （1954, 1955 ） pioneering articles, it is until recent that the empirical measurement study of public goods valuation has aroused more attention. According to Samuelson＇ s theory of public goods, pure public goods or services should ensure that each consumer＇s consumption of such goods or services will not lead to a reduction of others＇ consumption, the indivisibility of its utility,the nonrival of its consumption and nonexcludability of its benefit make the problem of free - riding inevitable in the supplying process, which also make the valuation of public goods become the focus of academic researches. This paper aims to clarify the various research methods of academic value evaluation of public goods, including the traditional revealed preference method, stated preference method and emerging happiness index method （or the life satisfaction approach）, and on the basis of those methods, I will extract hot issues systematically, and point out the direction for the further study in the future.