The transmission of adaptively valuable behaviours requires individuals who are more likely to possess them to have greater influence over others’ actions. The conferment of high status to the fittest is functional to this objective. We ask to what extent status recognition and the...

This paper analyses whether individuals are influenced by the day of the week when reporting subjective well-being. By using a large panel data set and controlling for observed and unobserved individual characteristics, we find a large day-of the-week effect. Overall, we find a 'blue' Sunday...

This paper examines the effect of religion on positional concerns using survey experiments. We focus on two of the dimensions of religion - degree of religiosity and religious festivals. By conducting the experiments during both the most important day of Ramadan (the Night of Power) and a day...

This paper uses both subjective well-being and survey experimental data to analyze how people's positional concerns regarding income and goods vary with age. The subjective well-being approach is mainly based on German panel data for the period 1984-2009 (German Socio-Economic Panel), while the...