Showing papers on "Veblen good published in 2016"

Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol

Abstract: Movies, magazines, and popular TV shows such as “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” often highlight the abundance of money and leisure time among the wealthy. Consistent with this portrayal, Veblen’s (1899/2007) theory of the leisure class suggests that the wealthy signal their ability to live idle lives by consuming time unproductively. At the same time though, complaining about being busy and about working all the time is an increasingly widespread phenomenon in modern society. On Twitter, celebrities publicly complain about “having no life” or “being in desperate need for a vacation” (Alford 2012). New York Times social commentator suggests that a common response to the question “How are you?” is “Busy!” (Kreider 2012). An analysis of holiday letters indicates that references to “crazy schedules” have increased since the 1960s (Schulte 2014). Contrary to the prediction that signaling time spent leisurely is associated with high status and wealth, we propose that signaling busyness has also become a status symbol and is regarded as an aspirational lifestyle.

The Private Government

Abstract: At first glance The Paper Economy seems to be little more than a generously acknowledged blend of old Veblen, Berle, Galbraith and Thurman Arnold poured into new and jarringly jazzy phrases. The title itself is a nonpejorative synonym for Veblen's Vested Interests, or the totality of property rights that are responsible for the nonuse and misuse of productive facilities. The "idea of competition" is a "mindless notion," "a religious tenet of faith," requiring "that the evidence of one's senses be denied/' Administered prices constitute taxation by large corporations (camouflaged by the nineteenth-century phraseology of property rights and free competition), the proceeds of which are expended for redundant advertising or oversized automobile fenders, rather than aid to education or urban rede-

Leisure, income inequality and the Veblen effect: cross-national analysis of leisure time and sport and cultural activity

Abstract: This paper was prompted by the publication in Britain in 2009 of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, which attracted considerable comment, both positive and negative and both substantive and methodological. The book claimed to show that, on a range of health and social measures of well-being, rich countries with more equal income distributions tended to perform better than those with less equal income distributions. Leisure time and behaviour were not among the indicators of well-being included and, while some researchers have sought to fill this gap, the range of leisure indicators used to date has been limited. This paper examines the relationship between income inequality and leisure time on a world-wide basis, and ten measures of cultural participation and two of sport and physical recreation participation in European countries. Efforts are made to address some of the methodological criticisms which have been made of The Spirit Lev...

The place of entrepreneurship in “The Economics that Might Have Been”

Abstract: It is a familiar observation that entrepreneurship is not easily accommodated within the framework of neoclassical economic theory. Drawing inspiration from an ancient critique of neoclassicism by Veblen (Q J Econ 12(4):373–397, 1898), this paper attributes the difficulty to the tension between normative accounts of decision making (as in mainstream theory) and ideas of causation that are standard in the sciences. Normative theories naturally privilege the conjectured future over the experienced past in the quest for explanatory factors. Evolutionary theories elucidate instead the mechanisms of “cumulative causation” (Veblen) that perpetually produce the present from the past. Entrepreneurship of the innovative (Schumpeterian) kind seizes opportunities that emerge in complex, evolving contexts of technological and institutional change. A theory that gives due weight to cumulative causation sheds greater light on these processes than prevailing mainstream theory can, and that is a key advantage of an evolutionary theory.

Joseph Schumpeter and Thorstein Veblen on technological determinism, individualism and institutions

Abstract: This article investigates Joseph Schumpeter's affinities with Thorstein Veblen with respect to technological change and determinism, the future of capitalism, individualism and institutions. From a methodological point of view, a common point in their analysis is their anti-teleological view regarding economics as a discipline. Also, in the Schumpeterian system, technology is the cornerstone of economic evolution and appears as the making of new combinations. In the Veblenian theoretical framework, the bearer of change is to be found, inter alia, in technology, just like in Schumpeter's works, although not without differences. They also share the opinion that technology revolutionises capitalism and has serious implications for its future as a system. Furthermore, regarding individualism, in his work Schumpeter stresses the importance of the social milieu on individual action, a fact which bears strong resemblance to the Veblenian notion of evolution as ‘depersonalized evolution’. In this sense, S...

Status Goods: Experimental Evidence from Platinum Credit Cards

Abstract: Economists have long hypothesized that social status considerations are a powerful driver of consumption choices (Veblen 1899) But empirically identifying status goods is difficult, since status components of consumption are confounded by unobserved instrumental utility We work with a large bank in Indonesia to market their widely-recognized platinum credit cards, typically restricted to high-income customers, to a marginally eligible population of customers In a control group, customers are offered all the financial services and benefits of the platinum card, but as an included upgrade on their existing nondescript credit card In two treatment groups, customers are instead offered the platinum card itself We find that demand for the platinum card is substantially higher than demand for the instrumental benefits, providing evidence of the importance of image considerations We provide evidence that the demand for the platinum card appears to be driven substantially by social image concerns, rather than self image or identity We find that it is the less-rich (middle-class) individuals in the sample who show a demand for the social image aspect of the platinum card, rather than the very rich An analysis of the utilization of the credit cards reveals that platinum card holders are causally more likely to use the card in social situations such as restaurants, bars and clubs, where the card may be visible to others In contrast, there are no effects on more private uses of the card, such as online purchases Finally, we provide evidence of "fashion cycles" in the marketing of elite credit cards, consistent with models of status goods (Pesendorfer 1995)

The Spirit of Luxury

Abstract: The aim of this article is to introduce and examine the concept of the “spirit of luxury.” Accordingly, we commence by delineating the philosophical idea of luxury, emphasizing its discursive meaning, and contemplating its earliest historical and etymological origins. We continue through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by means of a discussion of the philosophical, political, and economic writings of David Hume, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Emile Louis Victor Laveleye, and Werner Sombart. Employing Sombart’s sociological work on the spirit of capitalism, we advance and elaborate on the notion of the spirit of luxury. Offering a “Sombartian” account of recent luxury research, specifically the core contributions to this special issue of Cultural Politics, we conclude by critically assessing the concepts of luxury, spirit, and capitalism

Early contributions to the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon

Abstract: During the 1920s some American women economists developed theoretical, empirical and historical analyses that constituted a theory of consumption. The original formulations of this approach were based on the view, theorised by T. Veblen, that consuming certain goods makes it possible to identify with specific social groups. These analyses were explicitly alternative to the theories of consumption based on marginal utility. In the 1930s, however, the analyses of a second generation of women economists became exclusively empirical and the theoretical features that made the approach original and an alternative to marginalism were lost.

Thinking Like a Trader: The Impact of Neoliberal Doctrine on Habits of Thought

Abstract: :Neoliberalism has come out of the financial crisis unscathed. Moreover, it has further asserted its dominance over geopolitical discourse and ideology worldwide. I contend that neoliberal supremacy in the policy arena and upon domestic and international institutions has been largely uncontested because it has penetrated all aspects of life to the extent that it now represents what Thorstein Veblen referred to as “the modern point of view.” Understanding the global power of neoliberalism requires examining not only its well-established hegemony over institutions as social constructs, but also its impact on habits of thought as mental constructs. From a Veblenian perspective, I argue that the neoliberal doctrine generates habits of thought which legitimize the transformation of a marketoriented economy into a full-fledged market society. The impact of the normalization of the neoliberal mode of behavior may, in the end, worsen the fracture between nation and state and unravel the fabric of society ...

Lilo Linke a 'Spirit of insubordination' autobiography as emancipatory pedagogy : a Turkish case study

Abstract: This thesis examines the life and work of a little-known interwar period German writer Lilo Linke Documenting individual and social evolution across three continents, her self-reflexive and autobiographical narratives are like conversations with readers in the hope of facilitating progressive change With little tertiary education, as a self-fashioned practitioner prior to the emergence of cultural studies, Linke’s everyday experiences constitute ‘experiential learning’ (John Dewey) Rejecting her Nazi-leaning family, through ‘fortunate encounter[s]’ (Goethe) she became critical of Weimar and cultivated hope by imagining and working to become a better person, what Ernst Bloch called Vor-Schein Linke’s ‘instinct of workmanship’, ‘parental bent’ and ‘idle curiosity’ was grounded in her inherent ‘spirit of insubordination’, terms borrowed from Thorstein Veblen Experiences and writing these experiences up resembles Paulo Freire’s pedagogy ‘word=work=praxis’ Devoid of scientific or colonial gaze, she learned a new way of seeing, what Goethe called ‘tender empiricism’ I argue Linke’s praxis is an emancipatory pedagogy that worked toward betterment of the self and ‘common man’ (Veblen) This interdisciplinary research revisits a question Veblen broadly investigated regarding individual and social evolution at the turn of the twentieth century My primary question asks; how did Lilo Linke evolve from a ‘self-regarding’ individual to ‘other-regarding’ person to work for the betterment of the whole? The thesis comprises two parts Part I interprets Linke’s evolution evoking the Bildungsroman (Goethe) Using Veblen’s cumulative causation methodology, I explore German ‘native-bias’ by juxtaposing it to Linke’s ‘spirit of insubordination’ Part II selects Linke’s authorship (1937) on the modern Turkish Republic in its Etatist era and addresses my secondary question; how did Linke’s praxis reflect in her narratives on Turkey? I suggest there are strong parallels between Linke’s ‘experiential learning’ and ‘spirit of insubordination’ within Turkey, in that, they both worked for betterment of the whole under exceedingly trying circumstances

What If There Are No Conventional Price Mechanisms

Abstract: :Inspired by Frederic (“Fred”) S Lee’s theoretical contribution to institutional-heterodox economics, I make the case that the neoclassical price mechanism is not only flawed, but also irrelevant for the study of actual coordination mechanisms, hence the price mechanism — as a theory as well as a way of thinking — should be discarded While this position was addressed by early institutionalists, starting with Thorstein Veblen, later institutionalists have not completely rejected the price mechanism The sympathy for the price mechanism has prevented institutionalists (and other heterodox economists) from fully developing an alternative theoretical framework concerning how actual economic activities are organized I, therefore, provide an institutionalist-heterodox framework of the provisioning process focusing on business enterprise activities This framework shows how institutional economics becomes more refined and useful when it is married to other traditions in heterodox economics, in particu

The 2016 Veblen-Commons Award Recipient: Daniel W. Bromley: Institutional Economics

Abstract: :Institutional economics remains impaired by a lack of agreement as to the meaning of the concept “institution.” At the practical level, this conceptual muddle prevents progress in the crucial task of helping problematic states in Africa, parts of South Asia, and the Middle East. Thousands of refugees seeking to enter Europe are a reminder of the tragic consequences of dysfunctional states. Standard international development programs — emphasizing economic growth and fighting poverty — are counter-productive because they fail to address the underlying institutional incoherence in fragile states. They are flawed because they focus on symptoms rather than reasons. A focus on the reasons for current dysfunctional states would bring attention to the defective institutional architecture — legal relations — that prevents the emergence of economic coherence where dysfunction now reigns. We must help countries craft economic institutions that will improve livelihoods. But conceptual coherence about instit...

International travel to and from Brazil: overseas tourism as a luxury good and a status symbol

Abstract: Using data for the period 1995Q1–2012Q4, single-equation error correction models for real tourism import demand to Brazil and real tourism export demand from Brazil are derived. According to breakpoint tests, two periods (pre-2003 and post-2003) have to be distinguished. While international travel to and from Brazil can be seen as a luxury good for the whole period, low economic growth rates at the global level and the real appreciation of the Brazilian currency “real” from 2003 onward have led to stagnating real tourism exports and decreases in long-term income and price elasticities. However, high economic growth rates in Brazil and the real appreciation from 2003 onward have led to strongly growing real tourism imports and increases in long-term income and price elasticities. In line with international travel being regarded as a status symbol in Brazil, a Veblen effect of conspicuous consumption can be confirmed for the post-2003 period.

The entrepreneur in economic history

Abstract: Economic historians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries devoted considerable attention to businessmen and firms. They pointed in their writings to the achievements of individual entrepreneurs, as well as the contributions of inventors to the development of new technology, in explaining economic expansion. But they did not attempt to define explicitly the role of the entrepreneur in economic change, although they appear to have implicitly assumed that he was an important agent. From another stream came more specific information about the activities of entrepreneurs: histories of companies and biographies of businessmen. While most of these were highly eulogistic, containing little of substance for the analyst, writers like Ida Tarbell and H. D. Lloyd began to delve into the study of business operations from another point of view, to stress the misdoings of entrepreneurs who had created large firms. Herbert Spencer provided for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century audience a widely accepted interpretation of the process of change in the business world-the survival of the fit. Most contemporary academics seem to have viewed the end result of this process as desirable in creating economic progress, but Veblen raised a strong dissenting voice. In the first serious academic effort to study the historical role of the entrepreneur, dating from the late 1920's, its founder, N. S. B. Gras, initially conceived the subject in a broad manner-to place the business84

J.A. Schumpeter and T.B. Veblen on economic evolution: the dichotomy between statics and dynamics.

Abstract: At present, the discussion on the dichotomy between statics and dynamics is resolved by concentrating on its mathematical meaning. Yet, a simple formalisation masks the underlying methodological discussion. Overcoming this limitation, the paper discusses Schumpeter's and Veblen's viewpoint on dynamic economic systems as systems generating change from within. It contributes to an understanding on their ideas of how economics could become an evolutionary science and on their contributions to elaborate an evolutionary economics. It confronts Schumpeter's with Veblen's perspective on evolutionary economics and provides insight into their evolutionary economic theorising by discussing their ideas on the evolution of capitalism.

Institutionalist Economics Old and New

Abstract: The institutionalists were a rather loose and mixed group of economists, and institutionalism, as a brand, or type of economics is a rather fuzzy, opaque term. Even the origin of the term is difficult to discover. It appears to signify a concern with economic institutions, or organisations, such as industrial, labour, or monetary institutions, or with the property framework and legal institutions, together, in some cases, with an emphasis on collectivism, and group institutions, or organisations, rather than individuals, as the main economic agents or actors. Of course, many "orthodox" economists, such as Smith, J.S. Mill, and Marshall, were much concerned with such "institutions", but the American institutionalists gave them a far more central, fundamental and general role. For Thorstein Veblen, however, the most famous, or notorious, the most radical, and chronologically the first of the institutionalists, an "institution" meant something rather different, with a more profound significance. For Veblen (as expounded by Wesley Mitchell) "institutions" were the "habits of thought which prevail in a given period" (Mitchell [1949], II, p. 221). For Veblen: "An institution is of the nature of a usage which has become axiomatic and indispensable by habituation and general acceptance" ([1919], p. 225). Asserting the importance of "institutions", in this sense, was asserting something about the way in which economic decisions were arrived at in the real world, stressing the importance of habits and customs; and this implied a radical criticism of orthodox theorising and of its fundamental assumption about rationality and knowledge. According to Veblen, it was the task of economists to study such customs, usages, and habits of thought, or "institutions", and their evolution, in order to explain how economic decisions and actions had been undertaken at different times and places, rather than to assume a particular, highly simplified pattern as universal1.

Structural Equivalence and Cohesion Can Explain Bandwagon and Snob Effect

Abstract: I IntroductionThis paper employs social network analysis to identify the type of impact on consumers within a network (as opposed to independent consumers) when exerting purchasing behavior.Traditional theories of consumer behavior focused on relatively independent individuals and modeled consumer behavior as a process of individual information processing. However, limitations exist to the analyses that can be performed using this model of independent individuals. As living things, humans cannot live alone and both influence and are influenced by the society. Historically, Veblen (1899) posited that consumers consume social utility and are concerned about others' perception about them rather than private utility gained from products themselves and termed this conspicuous consumption. Leibenstein (1952) quantitatively proved the reason for the development of this conspicuousness, noting a positive externality such that when utility increases the more people own the same product and a negative externality such that when utility decreases with increasing ownership. Leibenstein (1952) termed the former bandwagon effect and the latter snob effect. These effects cannot be analyzed using models of independent individuals.Thus, this paper analyzes consumer networks and the consumers within them. Leibenstein (1952) explained that both the snob and bandwagon effects occur as more people consume the same good; however, existing studies have not clarified the conditions under which these opposite effects appear. If we suppose that they can appear simultaneously, they would end up negating each other. As explained by Simon (1976) and Takahashi (2015), people cannot find "all alternatives" and "all results of those alternatives" and then maximize the "value of ownership." In other words, among all people in the world, one cannot know who owns or does not own the same good. In this paper, the bandwagon effect is defined as an effect that increases in utility the more other people known to a person own the same product; conversely, the snob effect is defined as an effect that decreases in utility under those same conditions. This paper clarifies conditions under which the bandwagon and snob effects come into play within a consumer network as characteristics of that network.This paper is based on the fact that the consumer's decision to purchase the products differs depending on whether the others are unknown someones or friends and acquaintances. Identifying differences in conditions where the bandwagon and snob effects occur is possible by introducing relations. Social network analysis is an appropriate method for analyzing relationships, and this paper uses such an analysis to analyze the purchasing behavior of consumers. It primarily analyzes the type of structures formed by actors and ties.1Burt (1987) surveyed network structures and proposed the idea that structural equivalence (SE) creates more social contagion than cohesion. Cohesion refers to two actors being direct acquaintances, whereas SE implies that "two actors, A and B, in a network have the same relationship with others within that network" (Yasuda, 2001). Figure 1 represents this idea in the form of a graph, using the metrics of cohesion and SE in analyzing a network of consumers.II AnalysisWhen exhibiting purchasing behavior, consumers are influenced by others though they likely are not influenced on all products similarly. This is clear from the example of a person purchasing tea who will not defer to the opinions of the same individuals when purchasing a car. Whyte (1954) compared products where consumption is not visible (private goods) with those products where consumption is visible (public goods) and indicated an increasingly strong reference group influence in the latter. Furthermore, Bearden and Etzel (1982) discovered that in comparison with more common products, luxury goods are more strongly influenced by reciprocal interdependence that is not accompanied by the direct exchange of information, such as with conspicuous consumption. …

The concept of luxury from a consumer culture perspective

Abstract: Academic perspectives on the meanings of luxury often link luxury to status or conspicuous consumption, assuming that luxury derives its meaning primarily from a traditional viewpoint, in which it is narrowly associated with generic economic and social displays of superiority, as attained through the rhetoric of wealth (Vickers and Renand, 2003; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004). However, this traditional view of luxury fails to appreciate the cultural and emotional complexity of luxury consumption: this rather limited interpretation therefore risks rendering consumers as passive and primarily homogeneous entities. This thesis argues that the term ‘luxury’ has little meaning unless it is integrated within the current ‘practices’ of consumer culture. Thus, the study conceptualises luxury from a consumer perspective, wherein meanings are understood as resulting from luxury consumption practices adopted by diverse sets of consumers across cultures. Sixteen UK and Sixteen Thai undergraduate and postgraduate students were selected to participate in two stages of data collection, involving collage construction, in-depth interviews and further fieldwork. The findings extends the existing research on luxury by developing four practices of luxury consumption: caretaker, escapist, self-transformation, and status-based. Accordingly, the study proposes an alternation view of luxury as ‘everyday luxury’, a view in which consumers can transfer and incorporate self-defined luxuries into everyday contexts. The notion of everyday luxury fundamentally allows us to move beyond a purely materialistic understanding of luxury in order to reach a metaphysical account of luxury as a subjective, moral, ephemeral and immaterial concept present in our everyday living. Moreover, this idea considerably fulfils our understanding of contemporary luxury so that traditional luxury (Veblen, 1902) and everyday luxury can co-exist within the concept of luxury. Overall, the subjective truth of the meaning of luxury in a cross-cultural context is regarded as combining the construct and outcome of a reciprocal interaction between both traditional and everyday luxury, the understanding of the self and morality within different cultures and societies, and different reflections on individuals’ lived experiences.

Worker Cooperatives in the Theory of the Firm: Marx and Veblen on Technological Determinism

Abstract: :This article contends that, in their treatments of worker cooperatives, the predominant theories of the firm adhere to the logic of technological determinism, and can accordingly be evaluated using the ideas of Thorstein Veblen and Karl Marx. Invoking these patriarchs’ respective distinctions between instrumental and ceremonial institutions and between the technical and social relations of production, the article argues that, contrary to contemporary theories of the firm, worker cooperatives possess an inherent but often latent advantage in implementing bureaucratic organizational structures, enjoying their instrumental/technical benefits for technology and coordination without incurring their ceremonial/social drawbacks for behavior and cooperation.

Comparisons in Economic Thought: Economic interdependency reconsidered

Abstract: The idea of comparing rewards with others has a long and persistent presence in the social sciences, and can be found in many psychological, social and managerial theories. In economics, this idea can be traced back through the works of a substantial number of eminent thinkers, from Genovesi and Hume, to Smith, Ricardo, Marx, and Mill, through to Veblen, Pigou, and Keynes. In the last two decades the notion of social comparisons has started to appear more frequently in economic literature, especially in the subfield of happiness research. There are also signs that the notion has resurfaced in some strands of literature such as positional concerns, social identity models and social capital theory. Comparisons in Economic Thought offers a uniquely comprehensive account of how social comparisons have featured in the history of economic thought. This book provides an assessment as to why social comparisons have been dismissed by mainstream economists and considers their current and future usefulness. This volume is suitable for those who are interested and study history of economic thought, economic methodology and History of Consumer Theory, as well as Rational Choice Theory.

Veblen in Twenty-First Century America:The Renewal of a Critique

Abstract: Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), who was according to C. Wright Mills, "the best critic of America that America has produced", is particularly well known for his concepts of "conspicuous consumption", "invidious comparisons" and "trained incapacity". These ideas were first developed in his early classic The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) as part of a devastating critique of consumption patterns during the era of the robber barons at the turn of the twentieth century. Veblen’s assault on the assumptions of conventional economic theory, whose premises he found to be seriously lacking in plausibility, provided much insight into American financial capitalism leading up to the Great Depression in 1929. As inequality in the contemporary United States has increased significantly since the financial collapse in 2008, this article examines the explanations put forward by some current social scientists and compares them to Veblen’s earlier ideas.

Thorstein Veblen’s Financial Macroeconomics

Abstract: :The purpose of this article is to provide an exposition of Thorstein Veblen’s contribution to financial macroeconomics. I argue that Veblen conceptualizes and contextualizes how the financial structure of effective demand is predisposed to endogenous non-sustainable leverage processes, manipulation, and speculation. I stress that Veblen advances a cultural-financial theory of investment and brings forward the role that pecuniary and emulation instincts play in institutionalizing predatory and fraudulent activities which destabilize the macroevolution of monetary production economies. I underline that Veblen patterns financial macroeconomic fragility and instability within the institutions of the business enterprise system.

Subreption, radical institutionalism, and economic evolution

Abstract: This inquiry seeks to establish the importance of subreption as an approach to economic and social evolution that also proves integral to the tradition of radical institutionalism. We relate subreption’s etymology and appearances in Roman, Canon and Scots Law, as well as in Philosophy, to its applications found in writings advanced by Thorstein Veblen and carried on later as William Dugger details the rise of corporate hegemony. Understood as an approach derivable from selected philosophical writings of Immanuel Kant, in social science subreption is suggested to occur through the introduction of an outside value that sets off a form of institutional evolution that we characteize as an evolution noire. Considering subreption and the rise of big business, we can mark a movement away from a past governed by comparatively noble values and towards a deteriorated, debased and degraded economic and social reality overtly influenced by comparatively ignoble, pecuniary values. Key words: Evolutionary economics, Immanuel Kant, Radical institutionalism, Subreption, Thorstein Veblen, William Dugger.JEL: B15, B25, B31, B41.

Meaningful Objects or Costly Symbols? A Veblenian Approach to Brands

Abstract: Long before the emergence of the modern brand economy, Thorstein Veblen elaborated an economic theory centered on symbolic entities. Based on his thought, this article pursues a view of the brand which escapes both sociological and economic approaches to the phenomenon. Views of the brand as a meaningful object and of the trademark as a signal of product quality omit the simple possibility that the brand, to some extent, is a symbol turned into a commodity. The article develops this possibility using Veblen’s economic theory of display, which can be read as revolving around the notion of a ‘costly symbol’. Things which necessitate waste, and thus materially attest to wealth, enter Veblen’s economy of display insofar as they become valued for their own sake. His theory thus foretells the basic transformation that characterizes the emergence of modern brand economy, where symbols which ostensibly qualified commodities became by themselves economic objects.

Craving vs. Compulsion for Luxury Goods?: Trends and Patterns of Conspicuous Consumption Behavior in Asian Culture

Abstract: The purpose of this chapter is to examine why people are motivated to engage in luxury consumption, particularly in Asian countries. Purchases of global brands are increasingly popular among affluent society not only in Western nations, but also in other parts of the world. Global brands are normally associated with luxury brands from all categories of consumption goods such as cosmetics, handbags, electronic goods, cell phones and accessories, and watches among others.Previous studies have found that Western countries have clearly stated several key factors for consumers to purchase such luxury brands. Consumers in Asian markets are expected to engage in conspicuous consumption behavior to purchase global brands due to market demands and increasing income levels.Yet, such understanding is still much limited in the context of Asian consumers. Our work addresses this issue.

Brand Firm Performance and Tough Economic Times

Abstract: Negative income shocks may cause lower consumption and a switch in consumption from brand to non-brand products as consumers economize on price (Larkin 2013). This switch can also be the result of the vigorous promotion of private label products (Lamey et al. 2012). However, dedicated customers and conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1899; Berger and Ward 2010) can mitigate or even neutralize these effects on brand firms. Consistent with the notion that enduring consumption by brand customers has a stronger effect, we find that compared with non-brand firms, brand firms performed better in and recovered quicker from the difficult economic times of the late 2000s.