 The neglect of comparison income: An historical perspectiveThe European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2011, vol. 18, issue 3, 441-464 Abstract: Theories of social comparison have a long presence in the social sciences and have provided many useful insights. In economics, the idea of comparison, aspiration or relative income belongs to this theoretical framework. The first systematic usages of this notion can be found in the works of Keynes and Duesenberry. After these works the concept was relatively ignored by orthodox theorists until its recent re-appearance, mainly in the fields of labour and macroeconomics. To the contrary, however, income comparisons continued to play a role in much of Keynesian inspired and non-mainstream economics literature. In the past few years it has made a strong comeback in the literature of job satisfaction and of the economics of happiness. This paper attempts to trace the development of the concept in the modern history of economic thought. It also discusses the main theoretical implications of adopting income comparisons and possible reasons for its relative disregard by orthodox economics. Keywords: Relative income; history of economic thought; wages (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:18:y:2011:i:3:p:441-464 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09672560903552579 Access Statistics for this article The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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