What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context?

Format
mla apa chicago
Your Citation
Moffatt, Mike. "What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context?" ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2017, thoughtco.com/hedonic-economics-definition-1148011. Moffatt, Mike. (2017, February 11). What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/hedonic-economics-definition-1148011 Moffatt, Mike. "What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/hedonic-economics-definition-1148011 (accessed September 24, 2017).
dowell/Getty Images
Updated February 11, 2017

In an economic context, "hedonic" means of or relating to utility. (In a more general sense, hedonic is related in its etymology to hedonism, which is the search for pleasure.)  A hedonic econometric model is one where the independent variables are related to quality; e.g. the quality of a product that one might buy or the quality of a job one might take.

A hedonic model of wages might correspond to the idea that there are compensating differentials -- that workers would get higher wages for jobs that were more unpleasant.

Terms related to Hedonic:

  • Exponential Utility Function
  • CES Utility
  • Expected Utility

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Journal Articles on Hedonic:

Format
mla apa chicago
Your Citation
Moffatt, Mike. "What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context?" ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2017, thoughtco.com/hedonic-economics-definition-1148011. Moffatt, Mike. (2017, February 11). What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/hedonic-economics-definition-1148011 Moffatt, Mike. "What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/hedonic-economics-definition-1148011 (accessed September 24, 2017).