Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns

Abstract We use survey data to provide some empirical information about concerns regarding relative standing. Respondents chose between a world where they have more of a good than others and one where everyone's endowment of the good is higher, but the respondent has less than others. Questions asked about education, attractiveness and intelligence for one's child and oneself, income, vacation time, approval and disapproval from a supervisor, and papers to write. Half of the respondents preferred to have 50% less real income but high relative income. Concerns about position were strongest for attractiveness and supervisor's praise and weakest for vacation time.

[1]  O. D. Duncan Does money buy satisfaction , 1975 .

[2]  Tom Wansbeek,et al.  THE INDIVIDUAL WELFARE FUNCTION - A REVIEW , 1985 .

[3]  Amos Tversky,et al.  Endowment and contrast in judgments of well-being. , 1991 .

[4]  R. Frank Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status , 1986 .

[5]  R. Frank The Demand for Unobservable and Other Nonpositional Goods , 1985 .

[6]  Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women , 1990 .

[7]  William Samuelson,et al.  Status quo bias in decision making , 1988 .

[8]  J. Galbraith The Affluent Society , 1958 .

[9]  Andrew Postlewaite,et al.  Relative Income Concerns and the Rise in Married Women&Apos;S Employment , 1995 .

[10]  T. Veblen The Theory of the Leisure Class , 1901 .

[11]  R. Easterlin Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence , 1974 .

[12]  H. Varian Equity, Envy and Efficiency , 1974 .

[13]  William Diebold,et al.  Social Limits to Growth , 1977 .

[14]  Moses Abramovitz,et al.  Nations and households in economic growth : essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz , 1974 .

[15]  J. Kozol Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools , 1992 .

[16]  Andrew B. Abel,et al.  Asset Prices Under Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses , 1990 .

[17]  D. Hamermesh,et al.  Beauty and the Labor Market , 1993 .

[18]  Yew-Kwang Ng,et al.  Relative-Income Effects and the Appropriate Level of Public Expenditure , 1987 .

[19]  R. Easterlin Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all , 1995 .

[20]  Norman Frohlich,et al.  Choosing Justice: An Experimental Approach to Ethical Theory , 1992 .

[21]  Young Back Choi,et al.  Paradigms and Conventions: Uncertainty, Decision Making, and Entrepreneurship , 1993 .

[22]  A. Tversky,et al.  The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. , 1981, Science.

[23]  A. Sen,et al.  POOR, RELATIVELY SPEAKING , 1983 .