Running to keep in the same place: Consumer choice as a game of status

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hopkins, E; Kornienko, T
• 署名单位: University of Edinburgh; University of Stirling
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/0002828042002705
• 发表日期: 2004
• 页码: 1085-1107
• 关键词: Interdependent preferences; relative consumption; savings behavior; asset prices; social norms; auctions; utility; joneses; income; GROWTH

摘要

If individuals care about their status, defined as their rank in the distribution of consumption of one positional good, then the consumer's problem is strategic as her utility depends on the consumption choices of others. In the symmetric Nash equilibrium, each individual spends an inefficiently high amount on the status good. Using techniques from auction theory, we analyze the effects of exogenous changes in the distribution of income. In a richer society, almost all individuals spend more on conspicuous consumption, and individual utility is lower at each income level. In a more equal society, the poor are worse off.