's economic position relative to a reference group. Using merged data on race and state level income, we demonstrate that a key … prediction of our model -- that visible consumption should be declining in mean reference group income -- is strongly borne out … in the data separately for each racial group. Moreover, we show that accounting for differences in reference group income …

Study of Income Dynamics to explore the dynamics of alternative measures of consumption inequality. All of our different … nearly the same amount as income inequality …Recent research has documented that income inequality in the United States has increased dramatically over the prior …