IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/y2007ioct5n2007-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relative comparisons and economics: empirical evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Mary C. Daly
  • Daniel J. Wilson

Abstract

This Letter reviews the empirical evidence on the extent to which individuals' sense of well-being or happiness is related to metrics of the well-being of others.

Suggested Citation

  • Mary C. Daly & Daniel J. Wilson, 2007. "Relative comparisons and economics: empirical evidence," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue oct5.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:y:2007:i:oct5:n:2007-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2007/el2007-30.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2007/el2007-30.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2005. "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 963-1002.
    2. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2005. "How much do we care about absolute versus relative income and consumption?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 405-421, March.
    3. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Yamada, Katsunori & Sato, Masayuki, 2013. "Another avenue for anatomy of income comparisons: Evidence from hypothetical choice experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 35-57.
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/vbu6kd1s68o6r34k5bcm3iopv is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter, 2011. "Does relative income matter for the very poor? Evidence from rural Ethiopia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 213-215, March.
    4. Hajdu, Tamás & Hajdu, Gábor, 2011. "A hasznosság és a relatív jövedelem kapcsolatának vizsgálata magyar adatok segítségével [Examining the relation of utility and relative income using Hungarian data]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 56-73.
    5. Mary C. Daly & Daniel J. Wilson & Norman J. Johnson, 2013. "Relative Status and Well-Being: Evidence from U.S. Suicide Deaths," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1480-1500, December.
    6. Torgler, Benno & Schmidt, Sascha L & Frey, Bruno S., 2006. "The Power of Positional Concerns: A Panel Analysis," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt1z14v7zt, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    7. O'Donnell, Gus & Oswald, Andrew J., 2015. "National well-being policy and a weighted approach to human feelings," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 59-70.
    8. Luca Micheletto, 2011. "Optimal Nonlinear Redistributive Taxation and Public Good Provision in an Economy with Veblen Effects," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(1), pages 71-96, February.
    9. Tom Truyts, 2010. "Social Status In Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 137-169, February.
    10. KennethJ. Arrow & ParthaS. Dasgupta, 2009. "Conspicuous Consumption, Inconspicuous Leisure," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(541), pages 497-516, November.
    11. Graham, Liam & Oswald, Andrew J., 2006. "Hedonic Capital," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 745, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    12. Adrian de la Garza & Giovanni Mastrobuoni & Atsushi Sannabe & Katsunori Yamada, 2010. "The Relative Utility Hypothesis With and Without Self-reported Reference Wages," ISER Discussion Paper 0798, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, revised Jul 2012.
    13. Ravallion, Martin & Lokshin, Michael, 2010. "Who cares about relative deprivation?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 171-185, February.
    14. Benno Torgler & Sascha L. Schmidt & Bruno S. Frey, 2006. "Relative Income Position And Performance: An Empirical Panel Analysis," IEW - Working Papers 268, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    15. Clément S. Bellet, 2017. "The paradox of the Joneses: superstar houses and mortgage frenzy in suburban America," CEP Discussion Papers dp1462, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Justina A.V. Fischer & Benno Torgler, 2007. "Social Capital and Relative Income Concerns: Evidence from 26 Countries," CREMA Working Paper Series 2007-05, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    17. Demougin, Dominique & Upton, Harvey, 2023. "Relative income concerns and the Easterlin Paradox: A theoretical framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    18. Wen-Chun Chang, 2013. "Climbing up the Social Ladders: Identity, Relative Income, and Subjective Well-being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 513-535, August.
    19. Bogaerts, Tess & Pandelaere, Mario, 2013. "Less is more: Why some domains are more positional than others," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 225-236.
    20. Benno Torgler & Justina A.V. Fischer, 2006. "Does Envy Destroy Social Fundamentals? The Impact of Relative Income Position on Social Capital," Working Papers 2006.38, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    21. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen, 2011. "Weakly Relative Poverty," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1251-1261, November.

    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:fip:fedfel:y:2007:i:oct5:n:2007-30. 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: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.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.