Envy

Envy, Multi Envy, and Revenue Maximization

We study the envy free pricing problem faced by a seller who wishes to maximize revenue by setting prices for bundles of items. Consistent with standard usage [9] [10], we define an allocation/pricing to be envy free if no agent wishes to replace her allocation (and pricing) with those of another agent. If there is an unlimited supply of items and agents are single minded then we show that find...

Envy Theory

Envy-Free and Efficient Minimal Rights: Recursive No-Envy

In economics the main efficiency criterion is that of Pareto-optimality. For problems of distributing a social endowment a central notion of fairness is no-envy (each agent should receive a bundle at least as good, according to her own preferences, as any of the other agent’s bundle). For most economies there are multiple allocations satisfying these two properties. We provide a procedure, base...

Why envy outperforms admiration.

Four studies tested the hypothesis that the emotion of benign envy, but not the emotions of admiration or malicious envy, motivates people to improve themselves. Studies 1 to 3 found that only benign envy was related to the motivation to study more (Study 1) and to actual performance on the Remote Associates Task (which measures intelligence and creativity; Studies 2 and 3). Study 4 found that ...

Envy, Politics, and Age

In the last 5 years, the phrase "politics of envy" has appeared more than 621 times in English-language newspapers, generally in opinion essays contending that political liberalism reflects and exploits feelings of envy. Oddly, this assertion has not been tested empirically. We did so with a large adult sample (n = 357). Participants completed a Dispositional Envy Scale and questions about poli...