Concerns for Status and Social Image: Theory, Evidence and Implications for Welfare and Policy

The human desire for social status and prestige has recently received increasing interest in economics. Despite the huge body of theory and evidence, our understanding of how social image concerns affect social welfare remains limited, and it is unclear whether or to what extent social and industrial policy should be concerned with potential negative effects of the quest for status. Moreover, not only are the empirical results mixed and point to important behavioral heterogeneity, but also the theoretical approaches have taken different routes with at times strikingly different conclusions.

The goal of this workshop is to bring together scholars from Europe and the US working with different approaches and methodologies on the various facets of status concerns in order to engage in a discussion about what we know about the mechanisms behind and the economic consequences of status-seeking behavior, and to discuss when these concerns call for policy interventions and how these could be designed.

In cooperation with the DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, CRC TRR 190 "Rationality and Competition," DIW, DIW Vereinigung der Freunde, BCCP.