IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v38y2009i1p52-59.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relative status and interdependent effects in consumer behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Gasana, Parfait U.

Abstract

The current consumer culture, which associates the meaning of life primarily through the consumption of material goods and services, has brought many transformations in U.S. society. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative status and interdependent effects associated with consumer behavior, as developed by economists Veblen, Duesenberry, Frank, and Schor. Using the 2005 Consumer Expenditure Survey, several linear regression models have been conducted on four expenditure items including clothing, entertainment, home furnishings, and automobiles. While controlling for several demographic variables, a consumer's relative expenditure ranking emerges as the strongest substantive factor in determining clothing consumption and number of automobiles owned.

Suggested Citation

  • Gasana, Parfait U., 2009. "Relative status and interdependent effects in consumer behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 52-59, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:38:y:2009:i:1:p:52-59
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W5H-4T4J857-7/2/41725167ad611ec44413e80f23fb576e
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Kashdan & Daniel B. Klein, 2006. "Assume the Positional: Comment on Robert Frank," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 3(3), pages 412-434, September.
    2. 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.
    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. Cordes, Christian, 2009. "Changing your role models: Social learning and the Engel curve," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 957-965, December.
    2. Paraskevaidis, Pavlos & Andriotis, Konstantinos, 2015. "Values of souvenirs as commodities," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-10.
    3. Ekaterina Ekaterinchuk & Jochen Jungeilges & Tatyana Ryazanova & Iryna Sushko, 2017. "Dynamics of a minimal consumer network with uni-directional influence," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(5), pages 831-857, November.
    4. Steven D. Silver, 2016. "A QUAIDS Model of Need-Based Structure in U.S. Personal Consumption 2006–2012," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 44(3), pages 303-323, September.

    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. Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado & Ngo Van Long, 2012. "Envy and Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 949-973, September.
    2. Fluhrer, Svenja & Kraehnert, Kati, 2022. "Sitting in the same boat: Subjective well-being and social comparison after an extreme weather event," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    3. Abel Brodeur, 2012. "Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans," Working Papers halshs-00664269, HAL.
    4. Anna Fabry & Goedele Broeck & Miet Maertens, 2022. "Gender Inequality and Job Satisfaction in Senegal: A Multiple Mediation Model," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 2291-2311, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Proto, Eugenio & Rustichini, Aldo, 2012. "Life Satisfaction, Household Income and Personality Traits," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 988, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Oded Stark & Franz Rendl & Marcin Jakubek, 2012. "The merger of populations, the incidence of marriages, and aggregate unhappiness," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 331-344, April.
    9. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    10. Oindrila Dey & Swapnendu Banerjee, 2014. "Status Incentives with Discrete Effort: A Note," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 1205-1213.
    11. Bjornskov, Christian & Dreher, Axel & Fischer, Justina AV & Schnellenbach, Jan, 2009. "On the relation between income inequality and happiness: Do fairness perceptions matter?," MPRA Paper 19494, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Oded Stark & Wiktor Budzinski, 2021. "A social‐psychological reconstruction of Amartya Sen’s measures of inequality and social welfare," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 552-566, November.
    13. Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia & Stichnoth, Holger, 2012. "You can’t be happier than your wife. Happiness gaps and divorce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 110-130.
    14. KonShik Kim, 2023. "The impact of job quality on organizational commitment and job satisfaction: The moderating role of socioeconomic status," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(3), pages 773-797, August.
    15. Andrew E. Clark, 2009. "Work, jobs and well-being across the Millennium," Working Papers halshs-00566139, HAL.
    16. Goerke, Laszlo, 2013. "Relative consumption and tax evasion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 52-65.
    17. Hans-Jürgen Engelbrecht, 2015. "A General Model of the Innovation - Subjective Well-Being Nexus," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Andreas Pyka & John Foster (ed.), The Evolution of Economic and Innovation Systems, edition 127, pages 69-90, Springer.
    18. Ravallion, Martin, 2019. "Global inequality when unequal countries create unequal people," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 85-97.
    19. Oshio, Takashi & Urakawa, Kunio, 2013. "The association between perceived income inequality and subjective well-being: Evidence from a social survey in Japan," CIS Discussion paper series 579, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7fst0pcf5j8cr99e1nuobt97rn is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Carter, Steven & McBride, Michael, 2013. "Experienced utility versus decision utility: Putting the ‘S’ in satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 13-23.

    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:eee:soceco:v:38:y:2009:i:1:p:52-59. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.