Positional Concerns through the Life Cycle: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data and Survey Experiments

Alpaslan Akay () and Peter Martinsson
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Alpaslan Akay: University of Gothenburg

No 6342, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: subjective well-being; life cycle; positional concerns; survey experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2012-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hap and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Published - published in: Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2019, 78, 98-103

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