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The purpose of this paper is to study which factors affect consumer expenditure and how, when positional concerns matter. It also investigates how consumers finance and reallocate their expenditure, and modify their consumer baskets when members of their reference groups spend more on positional goods, and they do not want to lag behind.

A literature review is presented, and then a new model is developed from a behavioural economic perspective. It describes how consumers with various risk attitudes reallocate their consumer expenditure and modify their consumer baskets when consumption externalities influence their relative consumption due to a positional game, but they want to “keep up with the Joneses”.

Consumers with different risk attitudes finance and reallocate their consumption expenditures variously to sustain their relative positions. Risk-neutral, slightly and intermediately risk-seeking consumers achieve a lower utility level than others. They do not realise a utility-maximising consumer basket, as it includes a relatively low number of nonpositional goods, but this choice can be considered the best response in a positional game in order to sustain their relative position.

The relationship between positional and nonpositional goods is explicitly described. The model assumes that consumers can be classified based on their risk attitudes when positional concerns matter. It also describes how consumers with various risk attitudes reallocate their consumer expenditure when they want to sustain or improve their relative consumption in a positional game.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to investigate farmer’s positional concerns in rural China, and how the positional concerns correlate with household expenditures on visible goods.

The authors conduct a survey-based experiment to measure farmers’ positional concerns, and employ econometric models to examine the determinants of the degree of positional concern and how the positional concern affects household expenditures on visible goods.

The authors find that Chinese farmers have strong positional concerns for income, and high-income households are more concerned with relative position. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between males and females with respect to correlation between degree of positionality and household expenditures on visible goods. For females, there is a positive correlation between degree of positionality and household expenditures on clothes, restaurants, and mobile phones, respectively. For males, there is a positive correlation between degree of positionality and household expenditures on mobile phones.

The government policy thus should pay attention to the positional goods, and the relevant consumption tax by increasing the prices of visible goods could be considered or suggested in the future even in the rural areas.

This paper provides complementary evidence on Chinese farmers’ positional concerns, and how the degree of positional concern relates to household expenditures on visible goods.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how Facebook usage is positively related to envy and narcissism, which in turn increase users’ desire for self-promotion and propensity to engage in conspicuous consumption.

Data were collected via an online survey, with 674 usable responses collected from Facebook users of all ages.

The results support the hypotheses that increased Facebook usage is positively related to envy and narcissism. These two psychological constructs lead to stronger desires for self-promotion, spurring the behavioral response of conspicuous online consumption.

The findings are limited to the self-reported behaviors of a limited sample. Despite the limitations, the findings identify a process by which increased Facebook usage results in an increased desire to promote oneself through conspicuous consumption.

An understanding of the psychology linking social media use to conspicuous consumption can aid managers in developing marketing strategies to encourage the purchase and usage of positional goods. Specifically, more frequent users may be targeted by advertisers wishing to encourage the purchase and display of their products.

Facebook usage appears to elicit emotions – such as narcissism and envy – that most researchers would consider socially undesirable.

An emerging stream of research suggests that social media usage elicits both positive self-comparisons with others (i.e. narcissism) and negative (i.e. envy). This study is among the first to empirically test this effect on the purchase and consumption of positional goods.

The paper presents and analyses quantitative data on student perceptions about the employability of the first degree, and their trajectory choices on graduation. The purpose of this paper is to assess the value of the first degree as a positional good in Portugal, further to the degree’s reduced duration after the implementation of the Bologna Process.

In total, 828 students responded to an online survey administered between September 2013 and February 2014. Students came from 17 institutions, public and private, universities and polytechnics, across the country. Differences in student perceptions were analysed by higher education sector, study level and gender through descriptive statistics.

The majority of surveyed students, across sectors, study level and gender, assessed as negative the impact of the implementation of the Bologna reforms on the employability of the first degree. This had implications for students’ intended choices on graduation, as the majority consider enroling in a master degree (except for polytechnic students). Additionally, a large proportion of students felt unprepared to enter the labour market after the first degree.

The size and distribution of the sample pose limitations for the generalisation of results to the student population.

The finding suggest that enrolments in master degrees are likely to keep rising, a valuable piece of information for institutions and policy-makers responsible for regulating higher education in Portugal.

Opinions about the value of the first degree have generally been based on qualitative research or anecdotal evidence. This study brings a quantitative perspective on the first degree’s value for different groups of students.

The purpose of this paper is to study how positional concerns influence a parent’s time investment decisions of her/his child.

The author presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of household positional and non-positional time investment choices in the education of her/his child.

The author shows that a parent who is mindful of her/his relative position in the income distribution will use her/his time investment choices to influence her/his perceived status. The theoretical model predicts that visible time investment increases as members of her/his reference group move up in rank. The author shows that moving down in rank lowers utility. The author employs National Education Longitudinal Studies (1988) data set to test the model prediction and shows that visible time invested in child’s education is explained by place on the income distribution.

The author extends the positional literature to account for parent time investment in her/his child’s education. The work suggests that time investment in one’s child’s education is based on more than altruistic preferences and resources. It leaves open the possibility that perceived social standing influences a household’s time investment in their child’s education. From a policy perspective, the findings provide a new way to think about drivers of parental involvement.

Context is known to affect evaluation for many goods. For example, a house of any given size is more likely to be viewed as adequate the larger it is relative to other houses in the same locale. If evaluations of some goods are more sensitive to context than others, there is no presumption that privately optimal consumption patterns will be socially optimal. Rather, consumers will spend too much on goods whose evaluations depend most strongly on context and too little on those whose evaluations depend least strongly on context. For instance, if evaluations of houses are more sensitive to context than evaluations of leisure, then people will spend too much money on houses and too little time with family and friends. But if context sensitivity is the same for all goods, no distortions result.

This paper suggests theoretical grounds for expecting context sensitivity to differ across goods. Evaluations should be more sensitive to context for goods whose consumption is more readily observed by others and also for goods for which relative consumption is linked to other important payoffs. The quality of school that a child attends, for example, is often strongly linked to its parents’ relative expenditures on housing.

A survey of empirical evidence suggests that observed differences in context sensitivity track the differences predicted on theoretical grounds.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a perspective that ethical practices in higher education institutions can be a powerful tool for branding and attaining competitive advantage. The paper proposes that an ethical institutional brand can be built on the basis of just and fair practices at the institution, and quality admission and assessment processes.

A survey was conducted in seven different higher education institutions in and around Delhi NCR, India. The data were collected from 167 respondents through a self‐constructed questionnaire based on a five‐point Likert‐type scale. The reliability of the data was computed to have a Cronbach's α of 0.83.

The key findings of the research show a relationship between the perception of the respondents towards the quality of admission process and the development of an ethical institutional brand (r=0.284, p≤0.01). They also show that with just and fair academic processes, an ethically strong institution can be built (r=0.411, p≤0.01) and development of an ethical institutional brand will lead to attaining competitive advantage in the academic world (r=0.558, p≤0.01). Also, the perceptions of undergraduate‐ and postgraduate‐level students on the different variables of ethical practices leading to brand building are found to vary.

The sample chosen for the study was taken from Delhi, NCR, and hence does not incorporate the perception of students from Tier II and Tier III cities. Apart from this, the social desirability factor of the respondents (as applicable to all survey research) may also be one of the important limitations that may affect the research findings.

The study is a step forward in establishing a higher education system where ethically branded institutes will have an edge over others. The research may add key value for educational entrepreneurs who wish to establish an educational institution, helping them to work towards long‐term competitive advantage. This research endeavour is of help to policy makers, management of institutions, faculty, students and for the improvement of society as a whole. It is an attempt to explain the role of ethics in sustaining long‐term competitive excellence rather than a cutting edge for short‐term gains. It is practically of greater use in understanding the education industry scenario in the context of India, which has seen its education sector grow from philanthropy to being a business.

This paper identifies the need to rethink on the ethical functioning of institutions in the dramatically changed business environment of higher education in India. It is probably the first attempt to highlight the importance of ethical practices in higher education, and tries to draw a relationship between these practices and building the brand of higher education institutions. In light of the Education Bill passed in India, which gives great emphasis to ethical practices, the study is of pertinence to all who are willing to establish institutions or compete in the sector of education.

By drawing attention to the finite rather than unlimited nature of physical resources, the purpose of this paper is to: examine the implications of the (near absolute) emphasis placed on firm growth on sustainable consumption; and discuss complementary perspectives spanning individual, firm and societal levels that allow for both firm growth and sustainable consumption.

The authors integrate multidisciplinary insights from marketing, sociology, environmental sciences, management and economics, to understand the inherent tensions between unchecked firm growth, consumption and sustainability. Five propositions link production, consumption and marketing from a resource standpoint.

A ceaseless economic growth paradigm and overconsumption causes an unwarranted depletion of resources and is at odds with sustainability. Firms can play an important role by guiding future marketing and production toward sustainable ends. Several alternate perspectives support the case that growth may coexist and align with sustainable consumption. Consequently the authors consolidate and reflect on seven approaches (voluntary simplicity, humane consumption, CSR 2.0, social marketing, marketing 3.0, anti-positional economy and degrowth) that hold promise for achieving sustainability via responsible growth and consumption.

The authors consider the complex triad of growth, consumption and sustainability that spans multiple levels. A focus on the pattern and nature of growth and consumption helps to identify its effects on sustainability. Specifically, two value chain activities – production and marketing may be leveraged as firm level initiatives to achieve sustainable goals. In addition, the authors present seven heterogeneous perspectives that complement firm attempts to achieve growth with sustainable consumption. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

A characteristic feature of economic development is the ever-changing structure of consumption patterns. Reducing the explanation of this phenomenon to changing prices, ultimately caused by changes in the availability of goods (or characteristics), would neglect a major force driving this change, namely, the variation of consumer wants and consumer knowledge. The present paper sketches an evolutionary framework for the analysis of consumer behaviour that takes account of these features.

For this purpose, Carl Menger's theory of goods is taken as starting point. Whereas economists after the ‘marginal revolution’ were almost exclusively concerned with the determinants of exchange value and developing price theory, Menger puts as much emphasis on user value as on exchange value. Focusing on how user value changes establishes a connection between Menger's 19th-century theory of goods and 20th-century learning theories. The problem of how to get from individual learning processes to aggregate consumption patterns is approached by recollecting the genetic underpinnings of human learning and its dependence on certain physical and social conditions. Taking into account that these conditions are also dynamic, we are able to interpret collective learning processes as historical events, which renders them useable for the analysis of economic change.

The worldwide expansion of higher education participation has destabilised the value of higher education as a currency of opportunity. An increasing number of graduates are experiencing the precarity of unemployment, under-employment and low salaries. This study aimed to investigate how university students in China understand and respond to the changing relationship between higher education and career opportunities.

The research team conducted 100 in-depth interviews with final-year undergraduates at one elite and one lower-tier university in a metropolitan city in Guangdong Province.

The students were acutely aware of fierce competition in the graduate labour market. When asked “what matters most” for post-graduation career prospects, they identified elite universities and high-status fields of study as “traditional” currencies of opportunity. Nonetheless, to stand out in a competitive environment, they perceived a growing need to supplement higher education credentials through university experiences (internships, student governance, study abroad programmes), party membership, personal connections and (overseas) postgraduate education. Moreover, in a “race to the top”, they discussed how qualitatively distinctive university experiences and elite postgraduate education are “new” currencies of opportunity for high-status professional employment.

The study demonstrates how intensified competition for graduate employment can result in an “opportunity trap”. The students were participating in an “arms race” to accumulate positional advantages for their post-graduation careers. The net impact of such efforts on a systemic level is to create an upward spiral in what students are expected to do in preparation for their post-graduation careers and further destabilise the value of higher education as a currency of opportunity.