IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-13-00557.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reference standards for income comparisons: evidence from immigrants' return visits

Author

Listed:
  • Holger Stichnoth

    (ZEW Mannheim)

Abstract

The present paper shows evidence consistent with Falk and Knell's (2004) prediction that individuals' reference income increases with ability. To overcome the difficulty that the reference income is not observed in most data sets, I use indirect evidence from immigrants return visits to their countries of origin. Falk and Knell's model predicts that more educated immigrants are less likely to have returned to their country of origin for a visit, and that they are more likely to have difficulty feeling at home when they do return for a visit. Both predictions are tested using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and cannot be rejected.

Suggested Citation

  • Holger Stichnoth, 2013. "Reference standards for income comparisons: evidence from immigrants' return visits," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2707-2717.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2013/Volume33/EB-13-V33-I4-P255.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gundi Knies & Simon Burgess & Carol Propper, 2008. "Keeping up with the Schmidt`s – An Empirical Test of Relative Deprivation Theory in the Neighbourhood Context," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 128(1), pages 75-108.
    2. Alexander K. Koch & Julia Nafziger, 2011. "Self‐regulation through Goal Setting," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 113(1), pages 212-227, March.
    3. Joerg Dittmann & Jan Goebel, 2010. "Your House, Your Car, Your Education: The Socioeconomic Situation of the Neighborhood and its Impact on Life Satisfaction in Germany," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 96(3), pages 497-513, May.
    4. Conchita D’Ambrosio & Joachim Frick, 2007. "Income Satisfaction and Relative Deprivation: An Empirical Link," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 81(3), pages 497-519, May.
    5. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2008. "Relative Income, Happiness, and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 95-144, March.
    6. Albert O. Hirschman & Michael Rothschild, 1973. "The Changing Tolerance for Income Inequality in the Course of Economic DevelopmentWith A Mathematical Appendix," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(4), pages 544-566.
    7. Ciro Avitabile & Irma Clots-Figueras & Paolo Masella, 2014. "Citizenship, Fertility, and Parental Investments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 35-65, October.
    8. Gundi Knies, 2010. "Income Comparisons among Neighbours and Life Satisfaction in East and West Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 298, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    9. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2012. "Relative concerns of rural-to-urban migrants in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 421-441.
    10. Daniel Hamermesh & Stephen Trejo, 2013. "How do immigrants spend their time? The process of assimilation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 507-530, April.
    11. Anton Suvorov & Jeroen van de Ven, 2008. "Goal Setting as a Self-Regulation Mechanism," Working Papers w0122, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    12. Gundi Knies, 2012. "Income Comparisons Among Neighbours and Satisfaction in East and West Germany," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 106(3), pages 471-489, May.
    13. Ciro Avitabile & Irma Clots-Figueras & Paolo Masella, 2013. "The Effect of Birthright Citizenship on Parental Integration Outcomes," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 777-810.
    14. Christoph Sajons, 2016. "Does granting citizenship to immigrant children affect family outmigration?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 395-420, April.
    15. Hirschman, Albert O., 1973. "The changing tolerance for income inequality in the course of economic development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 1(12), pages 29-36, December.
    16. 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.
    17. Armin Falk & Markus Knell, 2004. "Choosing the Joneses: Endogenous Goals and Reference Standards," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 417-435, October.
    18. Alice Hsiaw, 2012. "Goal-Setting and Self-Control," Working Papers 1404, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2014.
    19. Hsiaw, Alice, 2013. "Goal-setting and self-control," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 601-626.
    20. Gert G. Wagner & Joachim R. Frick & Jürgen Schupp, 2007. "The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Scope, Evolution and Enhancements," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 139-169.
    21. Knight, John & Gunatilaka, Ramani, 2010. "Great Expectations? The Subjective Well-being of Rural-Urban Migrants in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 113-124, January.
    22. Anzelika Zaiceva & Klaus Zimmermann, 2011. "Do ethnic minorities “stretch” their time? UK household evidence on multitasking," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 181-206, June.
    23. Schwarze, Johannes & Harpfer, Marco, 2007. "Are people inequality averse, and do they prefer redistribution by the state?: Evidence from German longitudinal data on life satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 233-249, April.
    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. Abel Brodeur & Sarah Flèche, 2019. "Neighbors' Income, Public Goods, and Well‐Being," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(2), pages 217-238, June.
    2. Jinan Zeidan, 2015. "Are Comparisons Luxuries? Subjective Poverty and Positional Concerns in Indonesia," AMSE Working Papers 1505, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    3. Jantsch, Antje & Le Blanc, Julia & Schmidt, Tobias, 2022. "Wealth and subjective well-being in Germany," Discussion Papers 11/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier B. & Giulietti, Corrado & Robalino, Juan D. & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2016. "Remittances and relative concerns in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 191-207.
    5. Brodeur, Abel & Flèche, Sarah, 2013. "Where the Streets Have a Name: Income Comparisons in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 7256, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Li, Linyang, 2018. "Financial inclusion and poverty: The role of relative income," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 165-191.
    7. Stichnoth, Holger, 2009. "The optimal choice of a reference standard for income comparisons: indirect evidence from immigrants' return visits," ZEW Discussion Papers 09-037, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Clark, Andrew E. & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2014. "Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Thomas Dufhues & Judith Möllers & Antje Jantsch & Gertrud Buchenrieder & Laura Camfield, 2023. "Don’t Look Up! Individual Income Comparisons and Subjective Well-Being of Students in Thailand," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 477-503, February.
    10. Alpaslan Akay & Lisa Andersson & Peter Martinsson & Haileselassie Medhin, 2014. "Positional Concerns among the Poor: Does Reference Group Matter? Evidence from Survey Experiments," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 23(5), pages 673-699.
    11. Jinan Zeidan, 2015. "Are Comparisons Luxuries? Subjective Poverty and Positional Concerns in Indonesia," Working Papers halshs-01114396, HAL.
    12. Senik, Claudia, 2009. "Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 408-424, October.
    13. AndrewE. Clark & Claudia Senik, 2010. "Who Compares to Whom? The Anatomy of Income Comparisons in Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 573-594, May.
    14. Kaiser, Caspar, 2020. "People do not adapt. New analyses of the dynamic effects of own and reference income on life satisfaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 494-513.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3ile1g7sqe8kfpi2d1e7jp82im is not listed on IDEAS
    16. AMENDOLA, Adalgiso & DELL'ANNO, Roberto & PARISI, Lavinia, 2015. "Happiness, Inequality and Relative Concerns in European Countries," CELPE Discussion Papers 136, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    17. Mayraz, Guy & Wagner, Gert G. & Schupp, Jürgen, 2009. "Life Satisfaction and Relative Income: Perceptions and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 4390, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Diriwaechter, Patric & Shvartsman, Elena, 2018. "The anticipation and adaptation effects of intra- and interpersonal wage changes on job satisfaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 116-140.
    19. Felix R. FitzRoy & Michael A. Nolan & Max F. Steinhardt & David Ulph, 2011. "So Far so Good: Age, Happiness, and Relative Income," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 415, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    20. Sun Youn Lee & Fumio Ohtake, 2021. "How Conscious Are You of Others? Further Evidence on Relative Income and Happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(8), pages 3321-3356, December.
    21. Xavier Fontaine & Katsunori Yamada, 2013. "Caste Comparisons: Evidence from India," ISER Discussion Paper 0867, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; assimilation; goal-setting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • D0 - Microeconomics - - General

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00557. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.