This paper argues that an increase in the inequality of wealth prompts a stronger quest for status that in turn fosters the accumulation of wealth. It proposes a measure for an individual’s want of social status. For a given level of a population’s wealth, the corresponding aggregate measure...

This paper argues that an increase in the inequality of wealth prompts a stronger quest for status that in turn fosters the accumulation of wealth. It proposes a measure for an individual's want of social status. For a given level of a population's wealth, the corresponding aggregate measure of...

The planners and policymakers in India have been underscoring higher economic growth as an outcome as well as a prime-mover of development policies. However, while discussing about the economic growth both as an instrument and as an outcome, the question that inherently arises is whether...

Existing studies of trust formation in U.S. metropolitan areas have found that trust is lower when there is more income inequality and greater racial fragmentation. I add to this literature by examining the role of income inequality between racial groups (racial income inequality). I find that...

Alluding to theories about relative economic status and behavior, this paper studies if relative income mobility, or the intergenerational change in income positions, affects interpersonal trust. Empirically, the question is brought down to an application with US General Social Survey data. For...

There is a widespread perception that trust and social capital have declined in United States as well as other advanced economies, while income inequality has tended to increase. While previous research has noted that measured trust declines as individuals become less similar to one another,...

Does identification with dominant ethnic groups lead individuals to diverge in their preferences for redistribution? This paper contributes to the comparative analysis of the role of ethnic background in shaping attitudes towards government's role in reducing income inequalities in Indonesia,...

This paper investigates how inequality affects what the poor consider necessary to purchase. Using detailed information on the consumption choices of a large sample of poor households in India, we first provide evidence that inequality tends to make luxuries more necessary to the poor (their...

This paper examines the impact of income growth and income inequality on household saving rates and payoffs in a non-cooperative game where each player’s payoff depends on her present and future consumption and her rank in the present consumption distribution. The setting is a pooling...