The Power of Positional Concerns: A Panel Analysis

Benno Torgler, Sascha Schmidt () and Bruno Frey

CREMA Working Paper Series from Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)

Abstract: Many studies have established that people care a great deal about their relative economic position and not solely, as standard economic theory assumes, about their absolute economic position. However, behavioral evidence is rare. This paper provides an empirical analysis on how individuals? relative income position affects their performance. Using a unique data set for 1040 soccer players over a period of eight seasons, our analysis suggests that the larger the income differences within a team, the worse the performance of the soccer players is. The more the players are integrated in a particular social environment (their team), the more evident this negative effect is. Moreover, we find that positional effects lowering performance are stronger among high performing teams.

Keywords: Relative income; positional concerns; envy; performance; social integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D00 D60 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-ltv and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Power of Positional Concerns: A Panel Analysis (2007)
Working Paper: The Power of Positional Concerns: A Panel Analysis (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cra:wpaper:2006-19

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