IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/beh/jbepv1/v2y2018i1p13-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

James Duesenberry as a practitioner of behavioral economics

Author

Listed:
  • Ken McCormick

    (University of Northern Iowa)

Abstract

In 1949 James Duesenberry published "Income, saving and the theory of consumer behavior". His objective was to solve a puzzle presented by the macroeconomic data on consumption. To do so, he created the Relative Income Hypothesis. Duesenberry explicitly challenged the neoclassical assumption of independent consumer preferences and made use of ideas that are now common in behavioral economics: loss aversion, status quo bias, spotlight effects, herd behavior, and interdependent preferences. He also raised policy questions about the effect of redistributive taxes on national saving. To answer the questions he raised, we need empirical research by behavioral economists. Finally, the issue arises as to why the Relative Income Hypothesis has virtually disappeared from economics even though it is superior to the Permanent Income Hypothesis that replaced it.

Suggested Citation

  • Ken McCormick, 2018. "James Duesenberry as a practitioner of behavioral economics," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 2(1), pages 13-18, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:2:y:2018:i:1:p:13-18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sabeconomics.org/journal/RePEc/beh/JBEPv1/articles/JBEP-2-1-2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael J. Boskin & Eytan Sheshinski, 1978. "Optimal Redistributive Taxation When Individual Welfare Depends upon Relative Income," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(4), pages 589-601.
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    4. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    6. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1.
    7. Kockesen, Levent & Ok, Efe A. & Sethi, Rajiv, 2000. "Evolution of Interdependent Preferences in Aggregative Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 303-310, May.
    8. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    9. Focke, Florens & Maug, Ernst & Niessen-Ruenzi, Alexandra, 2017. "The impact of firm prestige on executive compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 313-336.
    10. Ok, Efe A. & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2001. "On the Evolution of Individualistic Preferences: An Incomplete Information Scenario," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 231-254, April.
    11. Chao, Angela & Schor, Juliet B., 1998. "Empirical tests of status consumption: Evidence from women's cosmetics," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 107-131, February.
    12. Ken McCormick, 1983. "Duesenberry and Veblen: The Demonstration Effect Revisited," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 1125-1129, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ebadi Esmaeil & Are Wasiu, 2023. "Reinvestigating the U.S. Consumption Function: A Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lags Approach," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Tazeb Bisset & Dagmawe Tenaw, 2022. "Keeping up with the Joneses: macro-evidence on the relevance of Duesenberry’s relative income hypothesis in Ethiopia," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(2), pages 549-564, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pradiptyo, Rimawan & Sahadewo, Gumilang Aryo, 2012. "On The Complexity of Eliminating Fuel Subsidy in Indonesia; A Behavioral Approach," MPRA Paper 40045, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kai Barron, 2021. "Belief updating: does the ‘good-news, bad-news’ asymmetry extend to purely financial domains?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 31-58, March.
    3. Michał Lewandowski, 2017. "Prospect Theory Versus Expected Utility Theory: Assumptions, Predictions, Intuition and Modelling of Risk Attitudes," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 9(4), pages 275-321, December.
    4. Arie Harel & Jack Clark Francis & Giora Harpaz, 2018. "Alternative utility functions: review, analysis and comparison," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 785-811, October.
    5. Essig, Lothar, 2005. "Precautionary saving and old-age provisions : do subjective saving motives measures work?," Papers 05-22, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    6. Selart, Marcus & Karlsson, Niklas & Garling, Tommy, 1997. "Self-control and loss aversion in intertemporal choice," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 513-524.
    7. Lovric, M. & Kaymak, U. & Spronk, J., 2008. "A Conceptual Model of Investor Behavior," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2008-030-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    8. Chorvat, Terrence, 2006. "Taxing utility," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-16, February.
    9. Karle, Heiko & Schumacher, Heiner & Vølund, Rune, 2023. "Consumer loss aversion and scale-dependent psychological switching costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 214-237.
    10. Jawadi, Fredj & Soparnot, Richard & Sousa, Ricardo M., 2017. "Assessing financial and housing wealth effects through the lens of a nonlinear framework," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 840-850.
    11. Wang, Peiwen & Chen, Minghua & Wu, Ji & Yan, Yuanyun, 2023. "Do peer effects matter in bank risk? Some cross-country evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    12. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    13. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    14. Mercè Roca & Robin Hogarth & A. Maule, 2006. "Ambiguity seeking as a result of the status quo bias," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 175-194, May.
    15. Leković Milјan, 2020. "Cognitive Biases as an Integral Part of Behavioral Finance," Economic Themes, Sciendo, vol. 58(1), pages 75-96, March.
    16. Joseph Teal & Petko Kusev & Renata Heilman & Rose Martin & Alessia Passanisi & Ugo Pace, 2021. "Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-14, August.
    17. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    18. Aleksandar S. Mojašević & Dejan Vučetić & Jelena Vučković & Stefan Stefanović, 2022. "Behavioral Approach to the COVID-19 Vaccination Policy: An Empirical Study in Serbia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, August.
    19. Subir Sen & S Madheswaran, 2013. "Regional determinants of life insurance consumption: evidence from selected Asian economies," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 27(2), pages 86-103, November.
    20. Heutel, Garth, 2019. "Prospect theory and energy efficiency," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 236-254.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Duesenberry; Relative Income Hypothesis; independent preferences; saving;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:2:y:2018:i:1:p:13-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SABE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sabeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.