We consider a multi-agent contracting setting when agents have “keeping up with the Joneses” (KUJ) preferences. Because productivity is affected by common shocks, it is optimal to base pay on performance relative to a benchmark. But when agents and care about how their pay compares to...

How do peers influence people's choices? We explore this fundamental question by exploiting unique data produced by, and a natural experiment conducted on, students from the United States Naval Academy (USNA). We develop a conceptual framework to highlight that individuals can emulate others for...

Analyses of income inequality are often applied to the case of measuring total income inequality in a given population, but often it is more interesting to make research into how income inequality can be related to income differences between population subgroups or how income inequality can be...