In 2001, Norwegian tax records became easily accessible online, allowing everyone in the
country to observe the incomes of everyone else. According to the income comparisons …

We review the survey and experimental findings in the literature on attitudes to income
inequality. We interpret the latter as any disparity in incomes between individuals. We …

Do individuals care about their relative income? While this is a long-standing hypothesis,
revealed-preference evidence remains elusive. We provide a unique test by studying …

Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that an individual's position in an income
stratum—more than the absolute income level—determines subjective well-being. However …

People use social comparisons to reduce uncertainty when facing new or stressful
situations. This study explores how a stressful experience, the COVID-19 pandemic …

Many households have insufficient savings to handle moderate and routine consumption
shocks. Many of these financially fragile households also have the highest lottery …

While there is now something of a consensus in the economics of happiness literature that
income comparisons to others help determine subjective well-being, debate continues over …

This paper uses peer comparisons to analyze the impact of different types of inequalities (ie,
within-group, between-group and overall inequality) and reference income on subjective …

We incorporate two sets of behavioural assumptions, fairness concerns and insatiable
desire for money, into a dynamic optimization model to illuminate how they can generate …

Income comparisons imply that individuals care not only about the absolute value of their
income but also about its relative value. Such comparisons likely have significant societal …