2025- Working Papers: Finance, Accounting and Insurance

In the standard economics model, individual utility is a function of one’s own consumption. Yet, the pursuit of status, which depends on the recognition of others and one’s standing relative to them, is an important driver of human behavior. Motivated by literature in linguistics and psychology that correlates between one’s vertical positioning and well-being, we explore the value of vertical status – one’s physical vertical positioning relative to others. Using transactions in high-rise residential buildings in Vancouver (Canada), we find an economically significant price premium for being higher than other units in both one’s own building and surrounding buildings, conditional on a unit’s absolute height, view, and other unit and building characteristics. Our findings further suggest that people weigh more heavily the disutility from having others positioned above them than the utility from having others below them. Finally, we find that the marginal value of vertical status increases with height.