Positional concerns through the life cycle: Evidence from subjective well-being data and survey experiments

Arbeitspapier

This paper uses both subjective well-being and survey experimental data to analyze how people's positional concerns regarding income and goods vary with age. The subjective well-being approach is mainly based on German panel data for the period 1984-2009 (German Socio-Economic Panel), while the survey experimental approach is based on a tailor-made experimental design conducted among Swedish adults. Our analysis suggests that the degree of positional concerns is not homogenous across the life cycle. Our different analytical approaches show a robust life cycle pattern of positional concerns: young people experience no or a low degree of positional concerns, yet the level of concerns for income increases gradually and significantly with age. The results also differ across goods: while car consumption is similar to income, the positional concern for leisure time decreases through the life cycle.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 6342

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: General ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Thema: positional concerns ; life cycle ; subjective well-being ; survey experiment ; Sozialer Status ; Lebensverlauf ; Zufriedenheit ; Schätzung ; Deutschland ; Feldforschung ; Schweden

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Akay, Alpaslan ; Martinsson, Peter
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2012

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/58530
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-201205026085
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ