The Spirit of Capitalism and Stock-Market Prices

Gurdip S Bakshi and Zhiwu Chen

American Economic Review, 1996, vol. 86, issue 1, 133-57

Abstract: In existing theory, wealth is no more valuable than its implied consumption rewards. In reality, investors acquire wealth not just for its implied consumption but for the resulting social status. Max M. Weber (1958) refers to this desire for wealth as the spirit of capitalism. The authors examine, both analytically and empirically, implications of Weber's hypothesis for consumption, savings, and stock prices. When investors care about relative social status, propensity to consume and risk-taking behavior will depend on social standards and stock prices will be volatile. The spirit of capitalism seems to be a driving force behind stock-market volatility and economic growth. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.

Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (216)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%2819960 ... O%3B2-3&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Spirit of Capitalism and Stock-Market Prices (1996)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:86:y:1996:i:1:p:133-57

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().