Keeping Up with the Vaishyas: Caste and Relative Standing

Fredrik Carlsson (), Gautam Gupta () and Olof Johansson-Stenman ()
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Gautam Gupta: Department of Economics, Jadavpur University, Postal: Kolkata-700 032, India.

No 171, Working Papers in Economics from Göteborg University, Department of Economics

Abstract: 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 effects, on average, which is comparable to the results from previous studies in other countries. Belonging to a low caste and having a low family income are associated with higher concern for relative income. Moreover, an increase in the mean income of the caste to which the individual belongs, everything else held constant, reduces utility for the individual. Thus, the negative welfare effect of reduced relative income compared to the average own caste income dominates the positive welfare effect of increased relative income of the own caste relative to other castes.

Keywords: Caste; India; relative income; positionality; status; questionnaire-experimental methods; random utility models; choice experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 H21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dcm, nep-exp and nep-pbe
Date: 2005-08-17
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