Do voters use ballot paper information on the personal characteristics of political candidates as cues in low-information elections? Using a unique dataset containing 4423 political candidates from recent elections in Germany, we show that candidates’ occupations do play an important role in...

This paper analyzes experimentally how the interaction of task meaning and peer presence affects work effort. We build on the experimental designs of Falk and Ichino (2006) and Ariely et al. (2008). Confirming previous results from the literature, we find positive peer effects and negative...

This paper shows that households with positional concerns and convex status utility use gambling to attempt leapfrogging in the social hierarchy. We test this theoretical prediction relying on household data that is representative for Germany, proxying the status orientation of households by...

We conduct a classroom survey to investigate the willingness to sacrifice consumption in absolute terms in order to ascend above others in terms of consumption levels. In contrast to other studies using survey methodologies, participants are divided into a treatment and a control group. This...

This paper investigates the influence of the political regime on the relative importance of conspicuous consumption. We use the separation of Germany into the communist GDR and the democratic FRG and its reunification in 1990 as a natural experiment. Relying on household data that are...

We test concerns for relative standing with respect to private consumption, income, leisure, savings, and personal characteristics, using data from a classroom survey. Our results show highest degrees of positionality for personal characteristics and income. In order to explain positionality, we...

This paper presents detailed evidence about who compares to whom in terms of relative income. We rely on representative survey data on the importance of income comparisons vis-a-vis seven reference groups, allowing us to exploit within subject heterogeneity. We explore the prevalence and...