We develop and test a model of social comparison in which individuals gain status through pro-social behavior (competitive altruism) and in which they endogenously choose the reference group and associated reference standard involved in signaling status (reference group selection). In our...

This paper uses data for more than 260,000 individuals in 34 European countries, 2002-2013, to study how nations' socio-demographic, economic, and environmental similarity and geographic, institutional, cultural and economic proximity affect the transnational diffusion of environment-related...