Keeping Up or Giving Up? Income Inequality and Materialism in Europe and the United States

Abstract We examine the extent to which income inequality is associated with materialistic values and behavior in Europe United States (US). In US, existing research on largely focused study of shopping shows that, when higher, individuals search for buy products that are more luxury. Europe, evidence this phenomenon mainly based survey questions people’s values, results mixed. To determine whether these conflicting findings rooted methodology or reflect structural differences between situation Americans Europeans, we measure both US Europe. Different types data used test our arguments. 1, use information from European Social Survey (ESS) World Values (WVS) relationship examining same question contexts States. 2, Google Trends internet searching Hybrid multilevel models analyzing variation relationships over time across regions show as well not values. However, greatly enhanced high. contrast, increasing decreasing behavior.