Who sees what? Demographics and the visibility of consumer expenditures

Ori Heffetz

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2012, vol. 33, issue 4, 801-818

Abstract: A growing body of work on social phenomena (like status, peer effects, social comparisons and fashion) rests on assumptions regarding the social observability of consumption activities. The present paper provides new empirical evidence for assessing such assumptions. We analyze data from a unique visibility survey, designed to quantify the relative “cultural” visibility of different consumer expenditures among US households. We investigate the relationship between respondents’ demographics and the expenditures they perceive as visible. We discuss implications for existing and future work.

Keywords: Expenditure visibility; Expenditure observability; Conspicuous consumption; Survey data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:33:y:2012:i:4:p:801-818

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.02.005

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