Ordinal vs cardinal status: Two examples

Ennio Bilancini and Leonardo Boncinelli

Economics Letters, 2008, vol. 101, issue 1, 17-19

Abstract: We demonstrate that in models where agents have concerns for status the model predictions can drastically change depending on whether status is modelled as an ordinal or cardinal magnitude. As a proof, we show that two well known theoretical findings are not robust to the substitution of ordinal status with cardinal status [Frank, R.H., The Demand for Unobservable and Other Positional Goods. American Economic Review, (75):101-116, 1985.] and viceversa [Clark, A. and Oswald, R.J., Comparison-Concave Utility and Following Behavior in Social and Economic Settings. Journal of Public Economics, (70):133-155, 1998.].

Keywords: D0; Status; Social; comparison; Ordinality; Cardinality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

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