Several previous studies have demonstrated the importance of relative consumption comparisons for public policy. Yet, almost all of them have ignored the role of leisure for status comparisons. Inspired by Veblen (1899), this paper assumes that people care about their relative consumption and that leisure has a displaying role in making relative consumption more visible, based on a two-type mod...

How predators select domestic relative to wild prey is of relevance to depredation management and presents opportunities to investigate foraging theory as applied to mammalian carnivores. Domestic prey have numerous qualities that should increase their energy value to predators relative to wild prey. However, whether a predator specializes on domestic prey should also depend on the relative imp...

BACKGROUND Few studies have evaluated the combined impact of following recommended lifestyle behaviors on cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality, and most included tobacco avoidance. Because 80% of Americans are never or former smokers, it is important to consider the impact of other recommended behaviors. METHODS In 1992 and 1993, 111,966 nonsmoking men and women in the...

BACKGROUND To estimate the contribution of tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking, low vegetable intake and low fruit intake to esophageal cancer mortality and incidence in China. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We calculated the proportion of esophageal cancer attributable to four known modifiable risk factors [population attributable fraction (PAF)]. Exposure data was taken from meta-analyses and...

This articles studies the optimal tax mix (taxes on income and commodities) under asymmetric information in a two-type model, when individuals make relative consumption comparisons. The model includes both positional and nonpositional goods, taking into account the fact that relative concerns matter for some but not for all commodities. We nd that in general the whole tax system is a ected by t...

In traditional economic models, individual utility depends only on absolute consumption. These models lie at the heart of claims that pursuit of individual self-interest promotes aggregate welfare. Recent years have seen renewed interest in economic models in which individual utility depends not only on absolute consumption, but also on relative consumption. In contrast to traditional models, t...

In this paper, we consider the problem of optimal investment, consumption and life insurance for a wage earner who has constant relative risk aversion(CRRA)preferences. The wage earner can invest in zero-coupon bond, stock and life insurance, and can make consumption decision. The interest rate and the volatility of the stock are stochastic, which results in incomplete market. Besides, the labo...