While experimental and behavioral economics have extensively studied the role of both upward and downward comparisons of economic status, the latter have been largely neglected in secondary data studies. The scarce existing evidence shows mixed results and is essentially limited to analyses of subjective well-being in high-income countries. Using nationally representative data from Mexico with almost 45,000 personal records, we disentangle the role of absolute wealth, relative deprivation, and relative affluence as explanatory variables for smoking behavior. We find robust evidence of greater smoking at higher levels of absolute achievement and relative deprivation and lower smoking at higher levels of relative affluence. Results hold for a variety of indicators of smoking habits, reflecting both smoking prevalence and intensity. Compared to men, we find that women tend to have stronger associations between the three facets of economic status and smoking prevalence. Results are robust to the use of alternative functional forms and reference groups for the measurement of relative deprivation and relative affluence.

中文翻译：

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墨西哥的吸烟习惯：经济地位的上下比较

虽然实验经济学和行为经济学已经广泛研究了经济状况向上和向下比较的作用，但后者在二级数据研究中基本上被忽视了。现有的稀有证据显示结果喜忧参半，基本上仅限于对高收入国家主观幸福感的分析。使用来自墨西哥的全国代表性数据以及近 45,000 条个人记录，我们将绝对财富、相对剥夺和相对富裕作为吸烟行为的解释变量的作用分开。我们发现强有力的证据表明，在绝对成就和相对剥夺水平较高时吸烟较多，而在相对富裕水平较高时吸烟较少。结果适用于多种吸烟习惯指标，反映了吸烟流行率和吸烟强度。与男性相比，我们发现女性在经济地位和吸烟流行率的三​​个方面之间往往有更强的关联。结果对于使用替代功能形式和参考组来衡量相对剥夺和相对富裕是稳健的。