The answer is that people's evaluations of their income situation are based on different considerations when the economy is expanding and when it is contracting. When, in the course of economic growth, incomes generally are rising, evaluations tend to be dominated by "social comparison" - what...

The ratio of Indian to US per capita output over the past 45 years has displayed a distinctive V-shaped pattern. We show that a strikingly similar V-shaped pattern is visible not just in aggregate output .figures, but also as the primary determinant of long-term movements in the cross-sectional...

Following Bai (2004) and Bai and Ng (2004) we estimate a common factor representation of a panel of output series for India, disaggregated by 15 states and 14 broad industry groups. We find that a single common V-Factor accounts for a large part of the significant shift in the cross-sectional...

The ratio of Indian to US per capita output over the past 45 years has displayed a distinctive "V"-shaped pattern. We show that a strikingly similar V-shaped pattern is visible not just in aggregate output .figures, but also as the primary determinant of long-term movements in the...