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Social Capital And Relative Income Concerns: Evidence From 26 Countries

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  • Justina AV Fischer

    ()

  • Benno Torgler

    ()

Abstract

Research evidence on the impact of relative income position on individuals' attitudes and behaviour is sorely lacking. Therefore, using the International Social Survey Programme 1998 data from 26 countries this paper investigates the impact of relative income on 14 measurements of social capital. We find support for a considerable deleterious positional concern effect of persons below the reference income. This effect is more sizeable by far than the beneficial impact of a relative income advantage. Most of the results indicate that such an effect is non-linear. Lastly, changing the reference group (regional versus national) produces no significant differences in the results.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Centre for Econometric Research in its series NCER Working Paper Series with number 19.

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Length: 63
Date of creation: 17 Oct 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:qut:auncer:2007-94

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Keywords: Relative income; positional concerns; social capital; social norms; happiness.;

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Cited by:
  1. Fischer, Justina AV, 2009. "The Welfare Effects of Social Mobility: An Analysis for OECD countries," MPRA Paper 17070, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  2. Markus Schaffner & Benno Torgler, 2008. "Meet the Joneses: An Empirical Investigation of Reference Groups in Relative Income Position Comparisons," CREMA Working Paper Series 2008-13, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
  3. Fischer, Justina AV, 2008. "Competition and well-being: does market competition make people unhappy?," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 697, Stockholm School of Economics.
  4. Fischer, Justina AV, 2008. "The Welfare Effects of Social Mobility," MPRA Paper 16339, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2009.
  5. D'Angelo, Emanuela & Lilla, Marco, 2007. "Is there more than one linkage between Social Network and Inequality?," IRISS Working Paper Series 2007-12, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
  6. Pugno, Maurizio, 2009. "The Easterlin paradox and the decline of social capital: An integrated explanation," The Journal of Socio-Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 590-600, August.

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