We demonstrate that upward-looking comparisons induce "keeping up with the richer Joneses"-behavior. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate the effect of reference consumption, defined as the consumption level of all households who are perceived to be richer, on household...

We propose a method to quantify other-regarding preferences in group decisions. Our method is based on revealed preference theory. It measures willingness-to- pay for others’ consumption and willingness-to-pay for equality in consumption by evaluating consumption externalities in monetary...

Do firms seek to make the market transparent,or do they confuse the consumers in their product perceptions? We show that the answer to this question depends decisively on preference heterogeneity. Contrary to the well-studied case of homogeneous goods, confusion is not necessarily an equilibrium...