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Conspicuous Consumption and Expenditure Visibility: Measurement and Application| old_uid | 5830 |
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| title | Conspicuous Consumption and Expenditure Visibility: Measurement and Application |
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| start_date | 2008/12/12 |
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| schedule | 10h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Individuals live in society, and many of their consumption decisions are observed
by others. This may affect consumers’ behavior, as they both observe other consumers
and are aware of being observed by them. We detail the theoretical foundation and
the construction of a new survey designed to quantify the relative “cultural” visibility
of different consumer expenditures. We report and analyze the survey results, placing
different consumption categories along a visibility scale. We apply our findings to
explore the extent to which a simple ‘signaling by consuming’ model `a la Veblen can
explain estimated total expenditure elasticities of demand in a cross-section of U.S.
households. We find that our visibility survey could predict up to one third of the
observed variation in elasticities across consumption categories. |
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| responsibles | Hollard |
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