Relative to What or Whom? The Importance of Norms and Relative Standing to Well-Being in South Africa

Relative concerns of rural-to-urban migrants in China

“…The main practice in the literature is to select the inhabitants of the geographical area where the respondent lives, then to re…ne by interacting geographical proximity with other dimensions (e.g., age, cohort, standard of living, and combinations of these in McBride, 2001; age, education and occupation groups in Clark and Oswald, 1996, and Ferrer-iCarbonell, 2005). 9 We follow the bulk of the literature, and acknowledge the possibly ad hoc choices made to construct reference groups, but suggest a systematic exploration of alternative orbits of comparison for the three types (rural, urban and migrants) and alternative comparison groups for the migrant workers in particular. 10 In addition, we test di¤erent "typical income" measures y k i , either the mean, the median income or other points of the income distribution of the reference group k. 9 The scope of the geographical reference varies, from being as large as East and West Germany (Luttmer, 2005).…”

“…9 We follow the bulk of the literature, and acknowledge the possibly ad hoc choices made to construct reference groups, but suggest a systematic exploration of alternative orbits of comparison for the three types (rural, urban and migrants) and alternative comparison groups for the migrant workers in particular. 10 In addition, we test di¤erent "typical income" measures y k i , either the mean, the median income or other points of the income distribution of the reference group k. 9 The scope of the geographical reference varies, from being as large as East and West Germany (Luttmer, 2005). When direct evidence is available, spheres of comparisons may be more speci…c, e.g., according to Knight et al (2009), 68% of Chinese rural respondents report that their main comparison group consists of individuals in their own village.…”

Remittances and relative concerns in rural China

“…This method allows for identifying positional concerns both for income and consumption of specific goods, such as cars and holidays (see, e.g., Alpizar et al, 2005;Carlsson et al, 2007;Hemenway, 1998, 2005;Akay et al, , 2013. 3 sometimes positive impact from relative concerns (see for South Africa: Kingdon and Knight, 2007;Bookwalter and Dalenberg, 2009;Ethiopia: Akay and Martinsson, 2011;China: Appleton and Song, 2008;Knight et al, 2009;Knight and Gunatilaka, 2010;Akay et al, 2012;Poland: Senik 2004Russia: Ravillion and Lokshin, 2000). 2 One possible explanation of the positive effect is the presence of altruistic feelings towards other members with which the individual interacts in, e.g., the local community.…”

Positional Concerns among the Poor: Does Reference Group Matter? Evidence from Survey Experiments

“…The studies on positional concerns in low-income countries presents more mixed results: a positive positional concern is reported by some studies reflecting tight community ties and altruistic preferences among the poor (e.g. Kingdon and Knight, 2007;Bookwalter and Dalenberg, 2009), while other studies find that the income of others does not significantly affect the utilities of the poor (e.g., Carlsson et al, 2007b;Ravallion and Lokshin, 2010;Akay and Martinsson, 2011;Akay et al, 2012a).…”