[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v111y2001i473p642-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Status Effects and Negative Utility Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Cooper, Ben
  • Garcia-Penalosa, Cecilia
  • Funk, Peter
Abstract
This paper explains the observed stagnation of "happiness" measures through a growth model in which agents care about conspicuous consumption. "Normal goods" confer direct utility, while "status goods" confer utility only at the expense of others. Firms can improve the quality of both goods through R&D. The Nash equilibrium of the consumer game results in the share of expenditure on status goods increasing with the number of times the status good has been improved. As the economy grows, resources for innovation are transferred entirely to status-good R&D. The resulting long-run rate of utility growth is negative.

Suggested Citation

  • Cooper, Ben & Garcia-Penalosa, Cecilia & Funk, Peter, 2001. "Status Effects and Negative Utility Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 642-665, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:111:y:2001:i:473:p:642-65
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:111:y:2001:i:473:p:642-65. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.