Abstract:

Research in marketing and psychology has shown that individual perception of economic mobility varies widely even in a single society and systematically influences decision-making and behavior across different domains. The objective of this paper is to introduce this important construct to researchers in other fields so that they can utilize and further develop it in future research. In particular, this paper highlights differences between perceived economic mobility and observed economic mobility and provides a critical and succinct review of the processes by which perceived economic mobility influences decision-making and behavior. Various future research directions are discussed as well.