Using data on 697 individuals from 375 rural low income households in India, we test expectations on the effects of relative income and conspicuous consumption on subjective well-being. The results of the multi-level regression analyses show that individuals who spent more on conspicuous consumption report lower levels of subjective well-being. Surprisingly an individual’s relative income position does not affect feelings of well-being. Motivated by positional concerns, people do not passively accept their relative rank but instead consume conspicuous goods to keep up with the Joneses. Conspicuous consumption always comes at the account of the consumption of basic needs. Our analyses point at a positional treadmill effect of the consumption of status goods.

This paper deals with the impact of self-help groups (SHGs) in apple production on empowering women in the Chencha district of Southern Ethiopia. Impact is traced on the basis of a cross-sectional survey among SHG members and nonmembers, using propensity score matching. Apart from the attitudinal changes among SHG and non-SHG women, we also scrutinize differences in male attitudes concerning the status of women. The results point towards positive and significant impacts of SHG participation on empowerment at the community level, which suggests that SHGs offer an effective space for women to share information and raise awareness about their rights. This could in turn be harnessed collectively to negotiate more “room to maneuver” in the community. At the same time, however, the data hint at negative effects from group participation at the household level. The attitudinal differences between treatment and control group indicate more conflictive relations between spouses, arguably due to an intensified fight to assert control over household resources. Hence, the evidence is consistent with a potential “backlash effect” from husbands.

Long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN), indoor residual spraying (IRS) and malaria case treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) have been proven to significantly reduce malaria, but may not necessarily lead to malaria elimination. This study explored factors hindering the acceptability and use of available malaria preventive measures to better inform area specific strategies that can lead to malaria elimination. Nine focus group discussions (FGD) covering a cross-section of 81 lay community members and local leaders were conducted in Ruhuha, Southern Eastern Rwanda in December 2013 to determine: community perceptions on malaria disease, acceptability of LLIN and IRS, health care-seeking behaviours and other malaria elimination strategies deployed at household and environmental levels. Discussions were recorded in Kinyarwanda, transcribed into English and coded using Nvivo 10 software. Participants ranked malaria as the top among five common diseases in the Ruhuha sector. Participants expressed comprehensive knowledge and understanding of malaria transmission and symptoms. The concept of malaria elimination was acknowledged, but challenges were reported. Sleeping under a bed net was negatively affected by increase of bedbugs (and the associated irritability) as well as discomfortable warmness particularly during the dry season. These two factors were reported as common hindrances of the use of LLIN. Also, widespread use of LLIN in constructing chicken pens or as fences around vegetable gardens was reported. Participants also reported that IRS appeared to lead to an increase in number of mosquitoes and other household bugs rather than kill them. Prompt health centre utilization among participants with presumed malaria was reported to be common particularly among subscribers to the subsidized community-based health insurance (CBHI) scheme. In contrast, the lack of CBHI and/or perceptions that health centre visits were time consuming were common reasons for the use of over-the-counter medicines for malaria management. In this study, identification of behavioural determinants in relation to LLIN use, IRS acceptability and health care seeking is a critical step in the development of effective, targeted interventions aiming to further reduce malaria transmission and elimination in the area.

This paper provides an empirical test of whether consumers in developing countries who live under conditions of poverty are prepared to pay a premium for products that feature a designer label, not because these are perceived as being of higher quality but for symbolic reasons. For this purpose a field experiment was conducted among urban, low‐income consumers in Bolivia. An incentive‐compatible procedure was used to elicit willingness‐to‐pay for designer brand perfume and an intrinsically equivalent non‐branded perfume. After correcting for possible “quality illusion”, we find that poor consumers, as a group, are willing to pay a premium for the designer label as a symbol. This willingness to pay for a designer logo depends on respondents' relative economic situation, education level and the frequency of watching soaps on television.

This paper presents impact estimates of women's self-help group (SHG) membership on subjective well-being in Odisha, India, using 2008 survey data in a quasi-experimental design. It finds that, while there is evidence of a positive impact of SHG membership on women's autonomy, on average, SHG membership does not affect subjective well-being. However, results also reveal that for members living in communities with relatively conservative gender norms among nonmembers, subjective well-being is notably lower. The authors interpret this finding as evidence that these SHG members feel a loss of identity – a problem that looms larger when women's enhanced autonomy implies a stronger violation of gender norms at the community level. In these communities, social-sanctioning mechanisms contribute to a negative impact of women's SHGs on subjective well-being, as evidenced by qualitative accounts of women's empowerment trajectories in the research area.