This paper provides an analysis of the social consequences of people seeking to keep up with the Joneses. All individuals attempt to reach a higher rank than the Joneses, including the Joneses themselves. This attitude gives rise to an equilibrium in which all individuals have equal utilities...

U.S. income inequality has risen dramatically in recent decades. Researchers consistently find that greater income inequality measured at the state or national level is associated with diminished subjective well-being (SWB) in the U.S. We conduct the first multi-scale analysis (i.e., at the...

This paper aims to study the process of intergenerational income mobility in some Latin American economies (Panama and Brazil), which have been much neglected in the existing literature. Like other countries in the area, also Brazil and Panama have a stagnant economy coupled with high income...

How strong are peer effects on the beliefs and spending decisions of individuals? We use a randomized control study in which treated households are told about either average income or debt of individuals like them to assess how peer effects influence their beliefs and spending. The information...

Various countries have implemented transfer programs to individuals since the Covid-19 outbreaks. However, the extent to which such transfers alleviate economic recessions is unclear. This paper analyzes a South Korean program, which provided vouchers redeemable only at small local businesses....

This study measures the extent to which Seoul's COVID-19 shopping coupon program affects individuals' consumption. Unlike other COVID-19-related transfer programs, the Seoul Metropolitan government provides consumption coupons depending on income. We quantify the causal effect of Seoul's program...

This paper investigates preferences for limiting top incomes and wealth through a survey-based experiment with a large sample of participants (N = 3,954) from the US and Germany. Using a revealed preferences approach, we find that a significant majority (around 85%) of participants support...

If redistribution is distortionary, and if the income of skilled workers is due to knowledgeintensive activities and depends positively on intellectual property, a social planner which cares about income distribution may in principle want to use a reduction in Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)...

This paper studies a model of the distribution of income under bounded needs. Utility derived from any given good reaches a bliss point at a finite consumption level of that good. On the other hand, introducing new varieties always increases utility. It is assumed that each variety is owned by a...

We analyze the association between inequality and growth across 72 labor market regions in Sweden 1990-2006. Highly accurate measures of growth and inequality (gini, Q3, p9075, p5010) are derived from population register data. The regional set-up also reduces problems with omitted variable bias...