Replication data for: Inequality, Aspirations, and Social Comparisons

We develop a model of adaptive learning with social comparisons. Actors are more likely to choose actions that recently yielded satisfactory payoffs; satisfaction is evaluated relative to an aspiration level that reflects previous payoffs and possibly other players' payoffs. This captures the phenomenon of social comparison via reference groups. We show that if agents compare themselves to those who are doing better than they are then in stable outcomes all payoffs must be equal. If, however, agents' aspirations are driven by less ambitious social comparisons then very unequal distributions can be stable. We apply our general results to collective action problems in socio-political hierarchies and derive conditions for stable exploitation. Finally, we develop a computer simulation to illustrate the roles of inequality and reference groups.

我们构建了一个引入社会比较的适应性学习模型。行动者更偏好选择近期产生了满意收益的行动；满意度的评判以个体的期望水平为参照，该期望水平既会反映行动者过往的收益，也可能纳入其他参与者的收益。这一建模设定捕捉了通过参照群体实施社会比较的现象。我们证明，若行动者以表现更优的对象为参照进行社会比较，则在稳定均衡状态下，所有参与者的收益必然完全相等。但倘若行动者的社会比较动机更趋温和（即不以表现更优者为参照），则高度不均等的收益分布仍可保持稳定。我们将一般性研究结论应用于社会政治层级结构中的集体行动问题，并推导出稳定剥削格局的存在条件。最后，我们通过计算机仿真模拟，直观展现了收益不均等与参照群体在该模型中的作用。