About

Miles Spencer Kimball holds the Eaton Chair in Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder and is Emeritus Professor of Economics and Survey Research at the University of Michigan. Born in 1960, he is currently 63 years old. He is also an Affiliate of the Behavioral and Health Genomics Center at the University of Southern California and a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach. Politically, Kimball identifies as an independent with strong opinions that do not align neatly with either the Republican or Democratic Party, and he is open to revising his views in response to cogent arguments. Before earning his doctorate in economics from Harvard University, he completed a Master's degree in linguistics with a thesis on the philosophy of language. Kimball is recognized as a pioneer in monetary policy, advocating for the use of deep negative interest rates as a tool to effectively combat economic crises. He shares his ideas and research through his blog, "Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal." Previously, he taught at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Actuarial science
• Economics
• Management science
• Data science
• Public economics
• Psychology
• Business
• Risk analysis (engineering)

Selected publications

• What Do People Want?

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-05-01 · 1 citations

  reportOpen access

  We elicited over a million stated preference choices over 126 dimensions or "aspects" of well-being from a sample of 3,358 respondents on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk).Our surveys also collected self-reported well-being (SWB) questions about respondents' current levels of the aspects of well-being.From the stated preference data, we estimate relative log marginal utilities per point on our 0-100 response scale for each aspect.We validate these estimates by comparing them to alternative methods for estimating preferences.Our findings provide empirical evidence that both complements and challenges philosophical perspectives on human desires and values.Our results support Aristotelian notions of eudaimonia through family relationships and Maslow's emphasis on basic security needs, yet also suggest that contemporary theories of well-being may overemphasize abstract concepts such as happiness and life satisfaction, while undervaluing concrete aspects such as family well-being, financial security, and health, that respondents place the highest marginal utilities on.We document substantial heterogeneity in preferences across respondents within (but not between) demographic groups, with current SWB levels explaining a significant portion of the variation.

  PublisherDOI

• From Happiness Data to Economic Conclusions

  Annual Review of Economics · 2024-05-20 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Happiness data—survey respondents’ self-reported well-being (SWB)—have become increasingly common in economics research, with recent calls to use them in policymaking. Researchers have used SWB data in novel ways—for example, to learn about welfare or preferences when choice data are unavailable or difficult to interpret. Focusing on leading examples of this pioneering research, the first part of this review uses a simple theoretical framework to reverse-engineer some of the crucial assumptions that underlie existing applications. The second part discusses evidence bearing on these assumptions and provides practical advice to the agencies and institutions that generate SWB data, the researchers who use them, and the policymakers who may use the resulting research. While we advocate creative uses of SWB data in economics, we caution that their use in policy will likely require both additional data collection and further research to better understand the data.

  PublisherDOI

• Diminishing Marginal Utility Revisited

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  How quickly does marginal utility fall with increasing consumption?It depends on the dimension along which we consider concavity of the utility function.This paper estimates the distribution of heterogeneous curvature parameters in individuals' utility functions from hypothetical choice data, while accounting for survey response error.Types of curvature examined include relative risk aversion, intertemporal substitution, the reciprocal of the altruism elasticity, and a new measure of inequality aversion, which queries how much more a dollar means to a poor family than to a rich family.Median values of curvature parameters ranging from 0.6 to 13.2.Utility functions are most concave for situations involving altruism, followed by risk aversion, inequality aversion, and intertemporal substitution.Heterogeneity of curvature in the population also varies: altruism is the most heterogeneous, followed by risk aversion, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, and inequality aversion.Nonetheless, curvature parameters are highly correlated (ρ > .8)over different elicitations within parameter type, and modestly correlated across dimensions in some cases, including inequality aversion and risk aversion (ρ ≈ 0.3), altruism and risk aversion (ρ ≈ 0.3), and altruism and inequality aversion (ρ ≈ 0.14).4).

  PublisherDOI

• Happiness Dynamics, Reference Dependence, and Motivated Beliefs in U.S. Presidential Elections

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Collecting and analyzing panel data over the last four U.S. presidential elections, we study the drivers of self-reported happiness.We relate our empirical findings to existing models of elation, reference dependence, and belief formation.In addition to corroborating previous findings in the literature (hedonic asymmetry/hedonic loss aversion, hedonic adaptation and motivated beliefs), we provide novel results that extend the literature in four dimensions.First, happiness responds to changes relative to both the political status quo (i.e., the incumbent presidential party) and the expected electoral outcome, providing support for two major hypotheses regarding reference point formation.Individuals exhibit hedonic loss aversion to deviations from expectations, but hedonic loss neutrality to changes from the status quo.Second, the speed of hedonic adaptation to deviations from the status quo is significantly slower than the speed of hedonic adaptation to surprises.Third, expectations affect happiness in a nonlinear way, consistent with Gul's model of disappointment aversion, but contrary to other influential reference-dependent models.Fourth, both "objective" and motivated subjective beliefs matter for the happiness reactions, although subjective beliefs matter more.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• From Happiness Data to Economic Conclusions

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-09-01 · 8 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  Happiness data-survey respondents' self-reported well-being (SWB)-have become increasingly common in economics research, with recent calls to use them in policymaking.Researchers have used SWB data in novel ways, for example to learn about welfare or preferences when choice data are unavailable or difficult to interpret.Focusing on leading examples of this pioneering research, the first part of this review uses a simple theoretical framework to reverse-engineer some of the crucial assumptions that underlie existing applications.The second part discusses evidence bearing on these assumptions and provides practical advice to the agencies and institutions that generate SWB data, the researchers who use them, and the policymakers who may use the resulting research.While we advocate creative uses of SWB data in economics, we caution that their use in policy will likely require both additional data collection and further research to better understand the data.

  PublisherDOI

• Adjusting for Scale-Use Heterogeneity in Self-Reported Well-Being

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• A General Approach to Adjusting Genetic Studies for Assortative Mating

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2023-09-05 · 7 citations

  preprintOpen access

  The effects of assortative mating (AM) on estimates from genetic studies has been receiving increasing attention in recent years. We extend existing AM theory to more general models of sorting and conclude that correct theory-based AM adjustments require knowledge of complicated, unknown historical sorting patterns. We propose a simple, general-purpose approach using polygenic indexes (PGIs). Our approach can estimate the fraction of genetic variance and genetic correlation that is driven by AM. Our approach is less effective when applied to Mendelian randomization (MR) studies for two reasons: AM can induce a form of selection bias in MR studies that remains after our adjustment; and, in the MR context, the adjustment is particularly sensitive to PGI estimation error. Using data from the UK Biobank, we find that AM inflates genetic correlation estimates between health traits and education by 14% on average. Our results suggest caution in interpreting genetic correlations or MR estimates for traits subject to AM.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Utility and Happiness

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-09-01 · 10 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract: Psychologists have developed effective survey methods of measuring how happy people feel at a given time. The relationship between how happy a person feels and utility is an unresolved question. Existing work in Economics either ignores happiness data or assumes that felt happiness is more or less the same thing as flow utility. The approach we propose in this paper steers a middle course between the two polar views that “happiness is irrelevant to Economics ” and the view that “happiness is a sufficient statistic for utility.” We argue that felt happiness is not the same thing as flow utility, but that it does have a systematic relationship to utility. In particular, we propose that happiness is the sum of two components: (1) elation--or short-run happiness--which depends on recent news about lifetime utility and (2) baseline mood--or long-run happiness--which is a subutility function much like health, entertainment, or nutrition. In principle, all of the usual techniques of price theory apply to baseline mood, but the application of those techniques is complicated by the fact that many people may not know the true household production function for baseline mood. If this theory is on target, there are two reasons data on felt happiness is important for Economics. First, short-run happiness in response to news can give important information about

  PublisherDOI

• What do Happiness Data Mean? Theory and Survey Evidence

  Journal of the European Economic Association · 2023-05-26 · 17 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract What utility notion—e.g. flow/lifetime, self/family-centered—do self-reported well-being (SWB) questions measure? Existing applications make different assumptions regarding the (i) life domains, (ii) time horizons, and (iii) other-regarding preferences captured by SWB data. To obtain relevant evidence, we ask survey respondents what they had in mind regarding (i)–(iii) when answering commonly used—life satisfaction, happiness, ladder—and new SWB questions. We find that respondents’ self-reports differ from researchers’ assumptions and differ across SWB questions and sociodemographic groups. At the same time, simple SWB-question wording tweaks are effective in moving self-reports toward desired interpretations. We outline actionable suggestions for SWB researchers. (JEL: D69, D90, I31)

  PublisherDOI

• Seniority

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant P01AG026571

  NIH · $12.4M · 2017

• Using the Dynamics of Subjective Well-Being to Measure the Import of Events

  NIH · $1.3M · 2011–2017

• NIH Grant R03AG016143

  NIH · $76k · 2000

Frequent coauthors

• Ori Heffetz

  299 shared

• Daniel J. Benjamin

  University of California, Los Angeles

  203 shared

• Kristen B. Cooper

  Gordon College

  79 shared

• Ruchir Agarwal

  Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center

  50 shared

• Matthew D. Shapiro

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  40 shared

• Alex Rees-Jones

  University of Pennsylvania

  32 shared

• Daniel J. Benjamin

  University of California, Los Angeles

  27 shared

• Tyler Shumway

  Brigham Young University

  25 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Economics

  Harvard University

  1987

• M.A., Linguistics

  Brigham Young University

  1986

• B.A., Economics

  Harvard University

  1982