Falling Behind: Has Rising Inequality Fueled the American Debt Boom?
研究了1980至2007年间，住房方面的社会比较与收入不平等加剧如何共同推动美国家庭债务增长，通过宏观经济模型表明，当社会比较是向上看齐时，不平等能解释相当部分的住房和债务热潮。
Abstract This paper studies whether the interplay of social comparisons in housing and rising income inequality contributed to the household debt boom in the United States between 1980 and 2007. We develop a tractable macroeconomic model with general social comparisons in housing to show that changes in the distribution of income affect aggregate housing demand, aggregate debt, and house prices if (and only if) social comparisons are asymmetric. In the empirically relevant case of upward-looking comparisons, rising inequality can rationalize a substantial share of the observed housing and debt boom.