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Keeping Up with the Vaishyas: Caste and Relative Standing
(2005)
We investigate the importance of relative income within the Indian Caste system, using a choice experiment. We find that slightly more than half of the marginal utility of income comes from some kind of relative income ...
How Much Do We Care About Absolute Versus Relative Income and Consumption?
(2001)
We find, using survey-experimental methods, that most individuals are concerned with
both relative income and relative consumption of particular goods. The degree of
concern varies in the expected direction depending on ...
Should We Trust Hypothetical Referenda? Test and Identification Problems
(2006)
In a paper published in the Journal of Political Economy, Cummings et al. experimentally compare hypothetical and real-money referenda. They reject the incentive compatibility hypothesis of hypothetical referenda. However, ...
Are people inequality averse or just risk averse?
(2001)
Individuals' preferences for risk and inequality are measured through experimental choices between hypothetical societies and lotteries. The median relative risk aversion, which is often seen to reflect social inequality ...
Do You Enjoy Having More Than Others? Survey Evidence of Positional Goods
(2003)
Although conventional economic theory proposes that only the absolute levels of
income and consumption matter for people’s utility, there is much evidence that relative
concerns are often important. This paper uses a ...
Measuring hypotheticalgrandparents preferences for quality and relative standings
(2001)
Individuals' aversion to risk and inequality, and their concern for relative standing, are measured through experimental choices between hypothetical societies. It is found that on average individuals are both fairly ...
Is Transport Safety More Valuable in the Air?
(2002)
Using a contingent valuation survey, people’s willingness to pay for a given risk reduction is found to be
much larger when traveling by air compared to by taxi. Follow-up questions revealed that an important
reason for ...
Choosing from Behind a Veil of Ignorance in India
(2002)
Social inequality aversion is measured through a veil-of-ignorance experiment with Indian
students. The median relative risk aversion is found to be quite high, about 3, and
independent caste.