This paper investigates the long-run implications of concerns for status when heterogeneous agents care about their relative consumption with respect to an endogenous benchmark consumption of their reference group. Agents endogenously choose whether to enter the rat race to consume the benchmark level of a social participation, status, good to gain access to socially advantaged and privileged groups because relative consumption determines agents’ relative position in society which is ultimately instrumental in the accumulation of wealth and absolute consumption. The dynamical analysis predicts that increases in mean incomes and reductions in inequality over the long-run process of development foster the competition for status, raise the cost of access to the reference group and drive the onset of multiple stable steady-state equilibria. This mechanism governs the endogenous transition from a Solovian-type stage to a development traps equilibrium at which the poorest dynasties are excluded from the reference group and trapped in a low-income stable equilibrium while the richest dynasties strive to differentiate themselves from the poorest ones to reap the economic benefits of the elite position in society.

中文翻译：

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通过社会地位和发展陷阱的出现实现社会包容

本文研究了当异质代理关心他们相对于他们参考群体的内生基准消费的相对消费时，关注地位的长期影响。代理人内生地选择是否进入老鼠赛跑以消费社会参与、地位、利益的基准水平，以进入社会优势和特权群体，因为相对消费决定了代理人在社会中的相对地位，最终有助于财富的积累和绝对消费。动态分析预测，在长期发展过程中，平均收入的增加和不平等的减少会促进地位竞争，提高进入参考群体的成本，并推动多重稳定稳态均衡的开始。