Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/58530 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 6342
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
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 survey experimental approach is based on a tailor-made experimental design conducted among Swedish adults. Our analysis suggests that the degree of positional concerns is not homogenous across the life cycle. Our different analytical approaches show a robust life cycle pattern of positional concerns: young people experience no or a low degree of positional concerns, yet the level of concerns for income increases gradually and significantly with age. The results also differ across goods: while car consumption is similar to income, the positional concern for leisure time decreases through the life cycle.
Subjects: 
positional concerns
life cycle
subjective well-being
survey experiment
JEL: 
C90
D63
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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