The Frame of Reference as a Public Good
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9707328 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert H Frank (Cornell University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue | 445 |
| Pages | 1832-1847 |
| Publication date | 1997-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1468-0297.1997.tb00086.x |
| OpenAlex | W2109480260 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 90 |
| References cited | 39 |
Does consuming more goods make people happier? For a broad spectrum of goods, available evidence suggests that beyond some point the answer is essentially no. Much of this evidence is from the large and growing scientific literature on the determinants of life‐satisfaction and psychological well‐being.1 Evidence from this literature also suggests, however, that there are ways of spending time and money that do have the potential to increase people's satisfaction with their lives, and herein lies a message of considerable importance for policy‐makers. The psychologist's conception of human well‐being is somewhat different from the economist's. Economists speak of an individual's utility, which in traditional economic models is assumed to be an increasing function of present and future consumption of goods, leisure, and other amenities that people typically view as desirable. Faced with a limited income, the individual is assumed to choose among alternatives so as to maximise her utility
Consumption (sociology · Economics · Economy · Frame (networking · Function (biology · Goods and services · Life satisfaction · Microeconomics · Point (geometry · Positive economics · Public economics · Public good · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction · Psychology · Social Psychology
The Pursuit of Happiness, Stress and Temporomandibular Disorders
Climate change, economics and Buddhism — Part 2
Ranking quality of life using subjective well-being data
Comparing futures
Environmental values and the frame of reference
Education as a Positional Good
Social Trends in American Life
Economics and Social Interaction
Can Subjective Questions on Economic Welfare be Trusted? Evidence for Three Developing Countries
Frame-Of-Reference Bias In Subjective Welfare Regressions
Weakly Relative Poverty
Health, income and relative deprivation
Does Economic Growth Raise Happiness in China?
The role of income aspirations in individual happiness
Explaining happiness
Self-rated economic welfare in Russia
Happiness, satisfaction and socio-economic conditions
The China Puzzle
Are Positional Concerns Stronger in Some Domains than in Others?
Money, Sex and Happiness
Well-being over time in Britain and the USA
Hic sunt leones
Educating citizens for changing economies
Relative Effects on Life Satisfaction Revisited
What is a positional good? Recovering Hirsch’s insights
The origins of children's understanding of technologies
Do Relative Income and Income Inequality Affect Consumption? Evidence from the Villages of Rural China
On The Welfarist Rationale For Relative Poverty Lines
Distant Strangers
Who Cares About Relative Deprivation
The Implications for Health, Depression, and Life Satisfaction from a Permanent Increase in Income for the Disadvantaged Elderly
Distinction Bias
Can Subjective Questions on Economic Welfare Be Trusted
Weakly Relative Poverty
Competition and curriculum diversity in local schooling markets
The trade-off between a high and an equal biological standard of living—Evidence from Germany
Income and the stability of democracy
Postwar Reconstruction
Inequality, happiness and relative concerns
More than the Sum of Parts
Uncertainty, Expectations and Behavioural Aspects of Housing Market Choices
Analyzing the relationship between income and life satisfaction of Forest farm households - a behavioral economics approach
The Logic of Good Social Relations
Interpersonal Interaction and Economic Theory
If happiness is relative, against whom do we compare ourselves? Implications for labour supply
Fixing Up after Tearing Down
A quest for status or a desire to fit in? An examination of suburban “monster homes” as a positional good
Citizen Feedback and Delivery of Urban Services
The local Joneses
Policy response to poverty and inequality in the developing world
Subjective economic well-being in Eastern Europe
Exploring the absolutist vs relativist perception of poverty using a cross-country questionnaire survey
A questioning economist
Inter-country differences in voter satisfaction with the democratic process
Happiness and public choice
The Effects of Absolute and Relative Incomes on Job Satisfaction among Male Workers in Japan
L'économie du bonheur
Rural–Urban Differences in Life Satisfaction
Devolution, sustainability and GDP convergence
Toward a theory of behavioral public administration
Income and Happiness
Happiness, Economy and Institutions
Ambition and Jealousy
Relativity, Rank and The Utility of Income
Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours
A Case for Happiness, Cardinalism, and Interpersonal Comparability
The happiness of sociality. Economics and eudaimonia
Subjective Well-Being over the Life Course
Is It Culture or Democracy? The Impact of Democracy and Culture on Happiness
The Composite Global Well-Being Index (CGWBI)
Some Uses of Happiness Data in Economics
How's the Job? Well-Being and Social Capital in the Workplace
On the Origins of Ordinal Utility
Bling-Bling politics
Civil society and social order
Should I stay or should I go? The association between upward socio-economic neighbourhood change and moving propensities
German Reunification
Is happiness inequality immune to income inequality? New evidence through instrument-effect-corrected standard deviations
Subjective Well-Being and the Welfare State
Reference Group Income and Subjective Well-Being
Why Do We Care About Having More than Others? Socioeconomic Determinants of Positional Concerns in Different Domains
A Comparison of the Well-Being of Agricultural and Non Agricultural Households Using a Multicriterial Approach
Freedom From' and 'Freedom To' Across Countries
They Are Richer But Are They Happier? Subjective Well-Being of Chinese Citizens Across the Reform Era
Factors that Influence the Life Satisfaction of Women Living in the Northern Cyprus
Subjective Well-Being Approach to the Valuation of International Development
Money, Sociability and Happiness
Absolute Income, Relative Income, and Happiness
Are One Man's Rags Another Man's Riches? Identifying Adaptive Expectations using Panel Data
Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income? Caveat Emptor
Income, saving, and the theory of consumer behavior
Social Limits to Growth
The Standard of Living
The Quality of Life
The Association of Social Relationships and Activities With Mortality
Emotion and Affective Style
Social Limits to Growth
Social Networks, Host Resistance, and Mortality
Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?
Theory of the Consumption Function
Poor, Relatively Speaking
Relative income concerns and the rise in married women's employment
Satisfaction and comparison income
Commuter travel and sickness absence of London office workers
Happiness and Economic Performance
Human Satisfactions and Public Policy
The impact of daily stress on health and mood
The Illusory Effects of Saving Incentives on Saving
How Retirement Saving Programs Increase Saving
Assessing the Effectiveness of Saving Incentives
Exercise, Fitness, and Feeling Well
The relationship between income and subjective well-being
The wealth of nations revisited
Does rapid economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence
| Unique citing works | 90 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,1 |
| Citation span | 1997 - 2026 (30) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 84 |