IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0299.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Money and Success –Sibling and Birth-Order Effects on Positional Concerns

Author

Listed:
  • Lampi, Elina

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Nordblom, Katarina

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

Survey data is used to investigate how birth order and having siblings affect positional concerns in terms of success at work and of income. We find that only-children are the most concerned with relative position, but that number of siblings increases the concern among those who grew up together with siblings. Furthermore, people whose parents often compared them with their siblings have stronger positional concerns in general. We find differences depending on whether the issue is relative income or relative successfulness, and that people generally have stronger positional concern in relation to friends, but less so in relation to parents and least in relation to siblings. We also find that younger respondents are far more concerned with relative position than older in all studied situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2008. "Money and Success –Sibling and Birth-Order Effects on Positional Concerns," Working Papers in Economics 299, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0299
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/9989
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neumark, David & Postlewaite, Andrew, 1998. "Relative income concerns and the rise in married women's employment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 157-183, October.
    2. Jonas Agell & Per Lundborg, 2003. "Survey Evidence on Wage Rigidity and Unemployment: Sweden in the 1990s," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(1), pages 15-30, March.
    3. Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Martinsson, Peter, 2006. "Honestly, why are you driving a BMW?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 129-146, June.
    4. Alison Booth & Hiau Kee, 2009. "Birth order matters: the effect of family size and birth order on educational attainment," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 367-397, April.
    5. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children's Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 669-700.
    6. Frank, Robert H, 1985. "The Demand for Unobservable and Other Nonpositional Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 101-116, March.
    7. Michael J. Boskin & Eytan Sheshinski, 1978. "Optimal Redistributive Taxation When Individual Welfare Depends upon Relative Income," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(4), pages 589-601.
    8. Fredrik Carlsson & Olof Johansson‐Stenman & Peter Martinsson, 2007. "Do You Enjoy Having More than Others? Survey Evidence of Positional Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(296), pages 586-598, November.
    9. Benno Torgler & Sascha L. Schmidt & Bruno S. Frey, 2006. "The Power of Positional Concerns: A Panel Analysis," CREMA Working Paper Series 2006-19, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    10. Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2010. "Money and success - Sibling and birth-order effects on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 131-142, February.
    11. Jasmin Kantarevic & Stéphane Mechoulan, 2006. "Birth Order, Educational Attainment, and Earnings: An Investigation Using the PSID," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    12. Justina A.V. Fischer & Benno Torgler, 2006. "Does Envy Destroy Social Fundamentals? The Impact of Relative Income Position on Social Capital," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2006 2006-04, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    13. Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi & Knight, John, 2007. "Community, comparisons and subjective well-being in a divided society," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 69-90, September.
    14. Pingle, Mark & Mitchell, Mike, 2002. "What motivates positional concerns for income?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 127-148, February.
    15. Robert Kaestner, 1997. "Are Brothers Really Better? Sibling Sex Composition and Educational Achievement Revisited," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(2), pages 250-284.
    16. Kessler, Daniel, 1991. "Birth Order, Family Size, and Achievement: Family Structure and Wage Determination," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(4), pages 413-426, October.
    17. 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.
    18. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Georgellis, Yannis & Tsitsianis, Nicholas & Yin, Ya Ping, 2009. "Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 42-51, February.
    19. Hanushek, Eric A, 1992. "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 84-117, February.
    20. Laura M. Argys & Daniel I. Rees & Susan L. Averett & Benjama Witoonchart, 2006. "Birth Order and Risky Adolescent Behavior," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(2), pages 215-233, April.
    21. Fischer, Justina A.V. & Torgler, Benno, 2006. "Does Envy Destroy Social Fundamentals? The Impact of Relative Income Position," Economic Theory and Applications Working Papers 12177, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    22. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    23. Kristin F. Butcher & Anne Case, 1994. "The Effect of Sibling Sex Composition on Women's Education and Earnings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 531-563.
    24. Persson, Mats, 1995. " Why Are Taxes So High in Egalitarian Societies?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(4), pages 569-580, December.
    25. McBride, Michael, 2001. "Relative-income effects on subjective well-being in the cross-section," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 251-278, July.
    26. Oswald, Andrew J., 1983. "Altruism, jealousy and the theory of optimal non-linear taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 77-87, February.
    27. Sara J. Solnick & David Hemenway, 2005. "Are Positional Concerns Stronger in Some Domains than in Others?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 147-151, May.
    28. Easterlin, Richard A., 1995. "Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 35-47, June.
    29. 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.
    30. Agell, Jonas & Lundborg, Per, 1995. " Theories of Pay and Unemployment: Survey Evidence from Swedish Manufacturing Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(2), pages 295-307, June.
    31. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "When the Joneses' consumption hurts: Optimal public good provision and nonlinear income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 986-997, June.
    32. J. Solnick, Sara & Hemenway, David, 1998. "Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 373-383, November.
    33. Ireland, N. J., 2001. "Optimal income tax in the presence of status effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 193-212, August.
    34. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2005. "Income and well-being: an empirical analysis of the comparison income effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 997-1019, June.
    35. Ng, Yew-Kwang, 1987. "Relative-Income Effects and the Appropriate Level of Public Expenditure," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 293-300, June.
    36. Olof Johansson-Stenman & Fredrik Carlsson & Dinky Daruvala, 2002. "Measuring Future Grandparents" Preferences for Equality and Relative Standing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 362-383, April.
    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. Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2010. "Money and success - Sibling and birth-order effects on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 131-142, February.
    2. Alpaslan Akay & Gökhan Karabulut & Peter Martinsson, 2013. "The effect of religiosity and religious festivals on positional concerns -- an experimental investigation of Ramadan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(27), pages 3914-3921, September.
    3. Kuba, Radim & Flegr, Jaroslav & Havlíček, Jan, 2018. "The effect of birth order on the probability of university enrolment," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 61-72.
    4. Warren, John Robert & Knies, Laurie & Haas, Steven & Hernandez, Elaine M., 2012. "The impact of childhood sickness on adult socioeconomic outcomes: Evidence from late 19th century America," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1531-1538.
    5. Eiji Yamamura, 2015. "Effects of Siblings and Birth Order on Income Redistribution Preferences: Evidence Based on Japanese General Social Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 589-606, April.
    6. Kirsten Häger & Bastian Oud & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "Egalitarian Envy: Cross-cultural Variation in the Development of Envy in Children," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-059, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    7. Adam Ayaita & Kerstin Pull, 2022. "Positional preferences and narcissism: evidence from ‘money burning’ dictator games," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 267-271, February.
    8. Carlsson, Fredrik & Lampi, Elina & Martinsson, Peter & Tu, Qin & Yang, Xiaojun, 2018. "Long-run effects of family policies: An experimental study of the Chinese one-child policy," Working Papers in Economics 732, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Effects of siblings and birth order on income redistribution preferences," MPRA Paper 38658, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Alpaslan Akay & Gökhan Karabulut & Peter Martinsson, 2013. "The effect of religiosity and religious festivals on positional concerns -- an experimental investigation of Ramadan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(27), pages 3914-3921, September.
    2. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2014. "Positional preferences in time and space: Optimal income taxation with dynamic social comparisons," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 1-23.
    3. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2014. "Paternalism against Veblen: Optimal Taxation and Non-Respected Preferences for Social Comparisons," Working Papers in Economics 606, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    4. Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2015. "Conspicuous consumption, conspicuous health, and optimal taxation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 59-70.
    5. Ronald Wendner, 2014. "Ramsey, Pigou, Heterogeneous Agents, and Nonatmospheric Consumption Externalities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(3), pages 491-521, June.
    6. Thomas Aronsson & Olof Johansson‐Stenman, 2010. "Positional Concerns In An Olg Model: Optimal Labor And Capital Income Taxation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1071-1095, November.
    7. Wendner, Ronald, 2010. "Ramsey, Pigou, and a Consumption Externality," MPRA Paper 21356, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2013. "Publicly Provided Private Goods and Optimal Taxation when Consumers Have Positional Preferences," Working Papers in Economics 558, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    9. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "When the Joneses' consumption hurts: Optimal public good provision and nonlinear income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 986-997, June.
    10. Eckerstorfer, Paul & Wendner, Ronald, 2013. "Asymmetric and non-atmospheric consumption externalities, and efficient consumption taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 42-56.
    11. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2014. "Genuine Saving and Conspicuous Consumption," Working Papers in Economics 605, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    12. Wendner, Ronald & Goulder, Lawrence H., 2008. "Status effects, public goods provision, and excess burden," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1968-1985, October.
    13. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter & Medhin, Haileselassie, 2012. "Does Positional Concern Matter in Poor Societies? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 428-435.
    14. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "Positional Concerns with Multiple Reference Points: Optimal Income Taxation and Public Goods in an OLG Model," Working Papers in Economics 304, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    15. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter, 2012. "Positional Concerns through the Life Cycle: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data and Survey Experiments," IZA Discussion Papers 6342, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2014. "State-variable public goods and social comparisons," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 390-410.
    17. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, olof, 2013. "State-Variable Public Goods and Social Comparisons over Time," Working Papers in Economics 555, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    18. Thomas Aronsson & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2014. "When Samuelson Met Veblen Abroad: National and Global Public Good Provision when Social Comparisons Matter," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 224-243, April.
    19. 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.
    20. Donald Bruce & Langchuan Peng, 2018. "Optimal taxation in the presence of income-dependent relative income effects," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(2), pages 313-335, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    birth order; positional concern; only child; relative income; siblings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:gunwpe:0299. 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: Ann-Christin Räätäri Nyström (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.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.