Reference Group Income and Subjective Well-Being: Empirical Evidence from Low-Income Transition Economies

Armenak Antinyan

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2016, vol. 127, issue 3, No 21, 1333-1348

Abstract: Abstract This paper aims at studying the connection between reference group income and life satisfaction in the three republics of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. I illustrate that in low-income transition economies individuals make not only upward comparisons, decreasing their subjective well-being if the reference group members are richer than they are, but also downward comparisons, enhancing their subjective well-being if the reference group members are poorer. This result contradicts Duesenberry’s idea that comparisons are mostly upward.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; Reference group; Transition economy; Upward comparison; Downward comparison; D60; D63; I31; P30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-0997-3

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