Relative Social Status and Conflicting Measures of Poverty - A Behavioral Analytical Model

Sugata Marjit, Sattwik Santra and Koushik Hati

No 543, Discussion Papers Series from University of Queensland, School of Economics

Abstract: We consider a situation where the relatively ‘poor’ are concerned about their relative income status with respect to a relevant reference group. Such a concern is explicitly introduced in a utility function to study the consumption behavior of the poor. We point towards a possible conflict between income based and nutrition- based measure of poverty. Changes in income distribution generate non-homothetic outcome for an “otherwise homothetic” preference structure and may convert an “otherwise normal” good into an inferior good.

Keywords: Status; Consumption pattern; Inequality; Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 D01 D12 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-04-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Relative Social Status and Conflicting Measures of Poverty: A Behavioural Analytical Model (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qld:uq2004:543

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