'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 …

-level data for the period 1880-1910, we explore the effects of milk inspections on infant mortality and mortality among children …