This paper uses Japanese data which includes measures of self-declared satisfaction, reference-group income, and the direction and intensity of income comparisons. Relative to Europeans, the Japanese compare more to friends and less to colleagues, and compare their incomes more. The relationship between satisfaction and others' income is negative, and more negative for those who report greater ...

This paper asks whether there can be unanimous support for a fiscal constitution that includes tax expenditures for giving among the set of available fiscal instruments. We describe a political economy model of fiscal choices where individuals with different incomes vote over levels of proportional income taxation and over tax incentives for giving, and investigate how the availability of such ...

This paper explores the difficulties of undertaking research with men living on low incomes. The literature shows that most social research undertaken with men has been based on groups of men from higher socioeconomic groups--predominantly from those in work, where access is less problematic than with those who are unemployed.A research project is used as an example to demonstrate the difficult...

This paper uses sequential stochastic dominance procedures to compare the joint distribution of health and income across space and time. It is the first application of which we are aware of methods to compare multidimensional distributions of income and health using procedures that are robust to aggregation techniques. The paper's approach is more general than comparisons of health gradients an...

In this article, the authors propose a theoretical model of the relationship between physical height and career success. We then test several linkages in the model based on a meta-analysis of the literature, with results indicating that physical height is significantly related to measures of social esteem (rho =.41), leader emergence (rho =.24), and performance (rho =.18). Height was somewhat m...

Research on social class and generosity suggests that higher-income individuals are less generous than poorer individuals. We propose that this pattern emerges only under conditions of high economic inequality, contexts that can foster a sense of entitlement among higher-income individuals that, in turn, reduces their generosity. Analyzing results of a unique nationally representative survey th...

Using data collected in a general population survey from a random sample of individuals in four communities in Pennsylvania, we tested the following two hypotheses: (1) that differences in sociodemographic characteristics exist among individuals with variant positions on environmental issues; and (2) that individuals with different positions on environmental issues exhibit dissimilar levels of ...

During the past five decades developing countries in Asia have provided the most persuasive and credible story as to how poor countries can progress and bring about prosperity for their downtrodden people. Beginning with Japan, followed by NICs particularly Korea, ASEAN countries and now China, these countries have not only doubled or quadrupled per capita incomes in a record time but also sign...