In the United States, owning an Apple iPhone or iPad would be an outside sign of wealth according to a study



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In the United States, in the eyes of many people, if you have an Apple iPhone or iPad, this is an outside sign that could indicate that you are making a lot of money. Is this in any case the result of a study called Coming Apart? Cultural distances in the United States over time and carried out by the National Bureau of Economic Research via economists of the University of Chicago, Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica.

The results were obtained from statistics provided by Mediamark Research Intelligence and between 1992 and 2016 on a sample of 6 394 people (via bi-annual questionnaires and face-to-face interviews).

Daprs Apple iPhone data was the individual mark that most suggested that its owner had a high income, the researchers wrote.

The economists found that owning an iPhone gave them a 69% chance of correctly predicting that the owner had a high income, which they defined as the top quartile of the household income.

Seeing iPhones being closely correlated with a high income household is a recent trend, according to the research. After all, iPhones were only introduced in 2007. In 2004, Land O 'Lakes butter and Kikkoman soy sauce were elements that left households with high incomes. In 1992, Gray Poupon mustard was the strongest sign of a wealthy family.

Knowing if someone owns an iPad in 2016 allows us to correctly guess if the person is in the income quartile above or below 67% of the time, explained the researchers.

The iPhone is a product that is generally more expensive than competing smartphones. While some of the lower-end Android phones can sell for $ 100 or less, Apple recently raised the price of its iPhone that broke the $ 1,000 mark.

Researchers were interested in how different groups – such as the rich and the poor, blacks and whites, men and women – have seen their preferences diverge over time. Economists have used a machine learning algorithm to conclude that cultural differences, or the way in which common marks and experiences are distributed among groups, do not increase over time.

This goes against the popular story of the United States, which is becoming an increasingly divisive society, the researchers said.

In addition to research on favorite brands, the document is also of interest to television missions, movies and magazines that higher-income households tend to read. Economists have also examined consumer behavior and social attitudes through demographic data


Source: results of the survey (PDF format)

And you?

What do you think you to this study?
Do you agree with his conclusions? Why ?

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