“Luxury beliefs": Signaling through ideology?

Margaret Samahita

No 202410, Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: The concept of "luxury beliefs" has gained increasing attention in recent months. It captures the idea that, as status goods become more affordable, ideology has emerged as a new way to signal status. I use a signaling game to derive a prediction related to the concept: given some beliefs are associated with high status, lower status individuals seek to pool with high status individuals by stating these beliefs if the social image gain is sufficiently high. I test this prediction using two online experiments and a series of statements commonly recognised as "luxury beliefs". I find that i) luxury beliefs are not strongly associated with status: they are only perceived to signal college attendance and negatively correlate with income and perceived income; and ii) there is no evidence of signaling using these beliefs in a (close to anonymous) online setting.

Keywords: Luxury beliefs; Status signaling; Social image (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D83 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2024-06
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