IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssb/dispap/240.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Status Preferences and Economic Growth

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper examines the implications of status-seeking behavior for long-term growth in a competitive economy. We explore the intuitive hypothesis that the quest for enhanced economic status leads to excessive levels of production and consumption. In a Ramsey growth model in which preferences are altered to include a concern for relative consumption, status seeking has no impacts on the economys long-run equilibrium in the absence of a labor-leisure tradeoff. Relative consumption effects do, however, induce short-term departures from efficient resource allocation, either augmenting or depressing consumption growth rates in accordance with the elasticity of substitution between consumption and status. In the case where social status is defined in terms of the relative accumulation of manufactured capital, status seeking leads to excessive rates of short-run growth and inefficiently high levels of capital and consumption in the long-run equilibrium. Similar results hold when preferences embody a concern for career status as captured by the relative accumulation of human capital, and when relative consumption effects are accompanied by a labor-leisure tradeoff.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard B. Howarth & Kjell Arne Brekke, 1998. "Status Preferences and Economic Growth," Discussion Papers 240, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
  • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:240
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ssb.no/a/publikasjoner/pdf/DP/dp240.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Oswald, Andrew J, 1997. "Happiness and Economic Performance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(445), pages 1815-1831, November.
    3. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    4. T. W. Swan, 1956. "ECONOMIC GROWTH and CAPITAL ACCUMULATION," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 334-361, November.
    5. Kjell Arne Brekke & Richard B. Howarth, 1998. "The Social Contingency of Wants Implications for Growth and the Environment," Discussion Papers 227, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    6. Postlewaite, Andrew, 1998. "The social basis of interdependent preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 779-800, May.
    7. repec:bla:ecorec:v:78:y:2002:i:243:p:375-80 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Fershtman, Chaim & Murphy, Kevin M & Weiss, Yoram, 1996. "Social Status, Education, and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 108-132, February.
    9. Corneo, Giacomo & Jeanne, Olivier, 1997. "On relative wealth effects and the optimality of growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 87-92, January.
    10. Howarth, Richard B., 1996. "Status effects and environmental externalities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 25-34, January.
    11. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    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. João Bernardino & Tanya Araújo, 2010. "On Positional Consumption and Technological Innovation- an Agent-based Approach," Working Papers Department of Economics 2010/04, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. Knut R. Wangen & Erik Biørn, 2001. "Prevalence and substitution effects in tobacco consumption: A discrete choice analysis of panel data," Discussion Papers 312, Statistics Norway, Research Department.

    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. Sanou Issa, 2021. "Jealousy and Wealth Inequality: The Cases of Heterogeneous Preferences and Elastic Labor Supply," Working Papers hal-03408115, HAL.
    2. Kawalec Paweł, 2020. "The dynamics of theories of economic growth: An impact of Unified Growth Theory," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 6(2), pages 19-44, June.
    3. Matthias Firgo & Peter Mayerhofer, 2015. "Wissens-Spillovers und regionale Entwicklung - welche strukturpolitische Ausrichtung optimiert des Wachstum?," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 144, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    4. Kevin S. Nell & A.P. Thirlwall, 2017. "Why does the productivity of investment vary across countries?," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 70(282), pages 213-245.
    5. Marion Payen & Patrick Rondé, 2020. "Culture, Institutions and Economic Growth," Working Papers of BETA 2020-18, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    6. Miketa, Asami & Mulder, Peter, 2005. "Energy productivity across developed and developing countries in 10 manufacturing sectors: Patterns of growth and convergence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 429-453, May.
    7. Holobiuc Ana-Maria, 2023. "Economic Growth And Cohesion In The European Union," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 6, pages 189-196, December.
    8. Jun, Bogang & Kim, Tai-Yoo, 2015. "A neo-Schumpeterian perspective on the analytical macroeconomic framework: The expanded reproduction system," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 11-2015, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    9. Emmanuel SENZU, 2018. "Investment Attraction, Competition And Growth; Theoretical Perspective In The Context Of Africa," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 9(1), pages 92-102.
    10. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    11. Dakpogan, Arnaud & Smit, Eon, 2018. "The effect of electricity losses on GDP in Benin," MPRA Paper 89545, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Alejandro Diaz-Bautista, 2005. "Regional Convergence of Income and Labor Productivity in Mexico," Urban/Regional 0512016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Turnovsky, S., 2000. "Growth in an Open Economy: some Recent Developments," Papers 5, Warwick - Development Economics Research Centre.
    14. Aparicio, Sebastian & Urbano, David & Audretsch, David, 2016. "Institutional factors, opportunity entrepreneurship and economic growth: Panel data evidence," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 45-61.
    15. Mariusz Próchniak & Bartosz Witkowski, 2006. "Modelowanie realnej konwergencji w skali międzynarodowej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 10, pages 1-31.
    16. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Mehmet Ugur & Siew Ling Yew, 2017. "Does Government Size Affect Per-Capita Income Growth? A Hierarchical Meta-Regression Analysis," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(300), pages 142-171, March.
    17. Achuo, Elvis & Nchofoung, Tii & Asongu, Simplice & Dinga, Gildas, 2021. "Unravelling the Mysteries of Underdevelopment in Africa," MPRA Paper 111556, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Tiwari, Aviral & Mutascu, Mihai, 2010. "Economic growth and and FDI in ASIA: A panel data approach," MPRA Paper 28172, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Uwe Deichmann & Marianne Fay & Jun Koo & Somik V. Lall, 2004. "Economic structure, productivity, and infrastructure quality in Southern Mexico," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 38(3), pages 361-385, September.
    20. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 1990. "Lecture Notes on Economic Growth(I): Introduction to the Literature and Neoclassical Models," NBER Working Papers 3563, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:ssb:dispap:240. 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: L Maasø (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ssbgvno.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.