Positional spending and status seeking in rural China
Focusing on a remote area in rural China, we use a panel census of households in 26 villages to show that socially observable spending has risen sharply in recent years. We demonstrate that such spending by households is highly sensitive to social spending by other villagers. This suggests that soci...
| Autores principales: | , , |
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| Formato: | Artículo preliminar |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
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International Food Policy Research Institute
2010
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/154771 |
| _version_ | 1855532221098622976 |
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| author | Brown, Philip H. Bulte, Erwin Zhang, Xiaobo |
| author_browse | Brown, Philip H. Bulte, Erwin Zhang, Xiaobo |
| author_facet | Brown, Philip H. Bulte, Erwin Zhang, Xiaobo |
| author_sort | Brown, Philip H. |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Focusing on a remote area in rural China, we use a panel census of households in 26 villages to show that socially observable spending has risen sharply in recent years. We demonstrate that such spending by households is highly sensitive to social spending by other villagers. This suggests that social spending is either positional in nature (that is, motivated by status concerns) or subject to herding behavior. We also document systematic relations between social spending and changes in higher order terms of the income distribution. In particular, and consistent with theories of rank-based status seeking, we find the poor increase spending on gifts as the income distribution tightens so that local competition for status intensifies. In addition families of unmarried men (who face grim marriage prospects given China's high sex ratios, especially in poor areas) intensify their competition for status by increasing their spending on weddings. The welfare implications of spending in order to “keep up with the Joneses” are potentially large, particularly for poor households. |
| format | Artículo preliminar |
| id | CGSpace154771 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| publishDateRange | 2010 |
| publishDateSort | 2010 |
| publisher | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| publisherStr | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1547712025-11-06T06:56:31Z Positional spending and status seeking in rural China Brown, Philip H. Bulte, Erwin Zhang, Xiaobo spending poverty households microeconomics Focusing on a remote area in rural China, we use a panel census of households in 26 villages to show that socially observable spending has risen sharply in recent years. We demonstrate that such spending by households is highly sensitive to social spending by other villagers. This suggests that social spending is either positional in nature (that is, motivated by status concerns) or subject to herding behavior. We also document systematic relations between social spending and changes in higher order terms of the income distribution. In particular, and consistent with theories of rank-based status seeking, we find the poor increase spending on gifts as the income distribution tightens so that local competition for status intensifies. In addition families of unmarried men (who face grim marriage prospects given China's high sex ratios, especially in poor areas) intensify their competition for status by increasing their spending on weddings. The welfare implications of spending in order to “keep up with the Joneses” are potentially large, particularly for poor households. 2010 2024-10-01T14:03:45Z 2024-10-01T14:03:45Z Working Paper https://hdl.handle.net/10568/154771 en Open Access application/pdf International Food Policy Research Institute Brown, Philip H.; Bulte, Erwin; Zhang, Xiaobo. 2010. Positional spending and status seeking in rural China. IFPRI Discussion Paper 983. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/154771 |
| spellingShingle | spending poverty households microeconomics Brown, Philip H. Bulte, Erwin Zhang, Xiaobo Positional spending and status seeking in rural China |
| title | Positional spending and status seeking in rural China |
| title_full | Positional spending and status seeking in rural China |
| title_fullStr | Positional spending and status seeking in rural China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Positional spending and status seeking in rural China |
| title_short | Positional spending and status seeking in rural China |
| title_sort | positional spending and status seeking in rural china |
| topic | spending poverty households microeconomics |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/154771 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT brownphiliph positionalspendingandstatusseekinginruralchina AT bulteerwin positionalspendingandstatusseekinginruralchina AT zhangxiaobo positionalspendingandstatusseekinginruralchina |