I think most things are more interesting than fiscal multipliers 😉

“For example, if someone is in a relationship with a particularly beautiful person, will they be willing to accept a return of less than 1 for 1 love and by how much?”

Indeed. How do we measure a “unit” of love. Different people will value a unit differently, both in terms of the cost of giving and the benefit of receiving. Objectifying love – economics does it all 😛

Hmmm, I think we need some sort of study to capture this. I am not convinced that the majority of people could invest 1 unit of love and expect exactly 1 unit in return.

That could be true if agents are sufficiently similar, indeed. And an initial guess with introversion and homogeneous agents would give a similar result. Agreed.

However, I still see this claim as both poor as a global first approximation and undeniably false as soon as individuals get some idea about the heterogeneity of agents.

Furthermore, the statement “in the end” seems to be discussing this issue ex-post. I find it implausible that “in the end” we will find that the love given by each individual is equal to the love they have received.

“I would contend that our preferences are non-stationary and influenced by our experiences. Further, I’m not convinced that we can forecast our own preference shifts accurately”

I agree. And I agree with all you said.

However, even given this I still view looking internally and forming a reaction function as superior to assuming the reaction function is globally 1 for 1. Why? Because I think the idea of diminishing marginal benefit and increasing marginal costs, both from the giving of and receiving of love, dictate this is true.

I didn’t intend to suggest – although, carelessly, I may have done so – that we don’t know our own preferences. I would contend that our preferences are non-stationary and influenced by our experiences. Further, I’m not convinced that we can forecast our own preference shifts accurately. If we could then we wouldn’t exhibit time inconsistency. As a pertinent example, how often do you hear people say “I thought I could cope with his emotional detachment, but ultimately it drove us apart”?

If we have no experience of a particular ‘good’ then we have preferences across it, but no data to rely on. Our preferences really depend on our forecasts of future emotions. If those forecasts turn out to be erroneous then our preferences are likely to change to reflect our changed expectations. My argument is that we cannot accurately forecast our feelings across situations that we have never encountered. Our preferences are likely to be informed by expectations that are founded in the reported feelings of others. Thus our initial preferences may reflect the aggregate societal outcomes. As we gain experience, those preferences will update.

“At most I think the song can be interpreted as suggesting that the love you receive is an increasing function of the love you give. Suggesting that it means an equality between the two takes the lyrics too literally, in my opinion”

Paul and John both said the lyric was about Karma, and that the love you give will be returned to you equally, so I think the interpretation is fair 😉

I do agree that love received is an increasing function of love given myself – but they believe there is a “social consciousness” that forces them to equality. I simply believe they have taken too much acid.

“Furthermore, I’m not convinced that people know their own reaction function until they have experience. My own experience has been that such introspection can produce inadequate forecasts of future feelings. Consequently, taking the aggregate as a forecast of personal outcomes may still be rational, even when introspection is available.”

Big call. If we don’t know our own set of preferences we have a whole lot of other issues.