|
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
Relative Consumption Concerns or Non-Monotonic Preferences?Inga HillesheimUniversity of Tuebingen Mario MechtelUniversity of Trier - Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Community; University of Tuebingen April 17, 2012 Abstract: We conduct a classroom survey to investigate the willingness to sacrifice consumption in absolute terms in order to ascend above others in terms of consumption levels. In contrast to other studies using survey methodologies, participants are divided into a treatment and a control group. This allows us to distinguish whether choosing less in absolute terms is really induced by relative consumption concerns, or else by non-monotonic preferences. We find that relative consumption concerns provide a good explanation for choosing less in the case of some goods, while this is not the case for a number of other goods.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 20 Keywords: status consumption, social status, behavioral economics, other-regarding preferences JEL Classification: C91, D63, D10 working papers seriesDate posted: April 18, 2012Suggested CitationContact Information
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
FAQ
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Copyright
This page was processed by apollo5 in 0.390 seconds
