A Test of Conspicuous Consumption: Visibility and Income Elasticities

Heffetz, Ori

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00116

Cited by 330 publications

(278 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…A meta-analysis by Goodwin et al (2004) finds that fuel consumption is more income-elastic than traffic volume, which is consistent with the idea that wealthier consumers buy less fuel-efficient cars. Heffetz (2011) documents larger income elasticities for more visible consumption categories for a wide array of expenditures.…”

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fiscal Policy and $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 Emissions of New Passenger Cars in the EU

Gerlagh

Bijgaart

Nijland

et al. 2016

Environ Resource Econ

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To what extent have national fiscal policies contributed to the decarbonisation of newly sold passenger cars? We construct a simple model that generates predictions regarding the effect of fiscal policies on average CO 2 emissions of new cars, and then test the model empirically. Our empirical strategy combines a diverse series of data. First, we use a large database of vehicle-specific taxes in 15 EU countries over 2001-2010 to construct a measure for the vehicle registration and annual road tax levels, and separately, for the CO 2 sensitivity of these taxes. We find that for many countries the fiscal policies have become more sensitive to CO 2 emissions of new cars. We then use these constructed measures to estimate the effect of fiscal policies on the CO 2 emissions of the new car fleet. The increased CO 2 -sensitivity of registration taxes have reduced the CO 2 emission intensity of the average new car by 1.3 %, partly through an induced increase of the share of diesel-fuelled cars by 6.5 percentage points. Higher fuel taxes lead to the purchase of more fuel efficient cars, but higher diesel fuel taxes also decrease the share of (more fuel efficient) diesel cars; higher annual road taxes have no or an adverse effect.Keywords Vehicle registration taxes · Fuel taxes · CO 2 emissions JEL Classification H30 · L62 · Q48 · Q54 · Q58 · R48 B Reyer Gerlagh r.gerlagh@uvt.nl

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Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fiscal Policy and $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 Emissions of New Passenger Cars in the EU

Gerlagh

Bijgaart

Nijland

et al. 2016

Environ Resource Econ

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Section: Data and Definitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the U.S., Heffetz (2007) as well as Charles, Hurst, and Roussanov (2009) conducted a survey for this purpose. Whereas the telephone survey conducted by Heffetz (2007) was a random sample of the U.S. population over 18 years, the survey by Charles, Hurst, and Roussanov (2009) was made among business students of the University of Chicago. According to the students' opinions, spending on apparel, accessories, such as watches and jewelry, personal care, and vehicles, are the most visible signs of better economic circumstances in anonymous interactions.…”

Section: Data and Definitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conspicuous consumption and “race”: Evidence from South Africa

Kaus¹

2013

Journal of Development Economics

101

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A century ago, Thorstein Veblen introduced socially contingent consumption into the economic literature. This paper complements the scarce empirical literature by testing his conjecture on South African household data and finds that Black and Coloured households spend relatively more on visible consumption than comparable White households. In an emerging economy context, this is especially important as it carries implications for spending on future assets. This paper explores whether the differences in visible expenditures can be explained with a signaling model of status seeking. Among Black households, spending on visible consumption is found to change predictably with different reference group incomes.

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“…Similar to Heffetz (2011), we drop one item at each time. In each of the 32 new estimations, the significance levels of the explanatory variables' coefficients turn out to be the same as in 9 Furthermore, including only one of the two explanatory variables does not lead to different conclusions: we find a statistically significant positive effect of non-psychological externalities on the treatment effect, while the coefficient of the observability control variable remains statistically insignificant, regardless of whether we include the share or the dummy variable.…”

Section: Cinema Visits Restaurant Visitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How much do others matter? Explaining positional concerns for different goods and personal characteristics

Hillesheim¹,

Mechtel

2013

Journal of Economic Psychology

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractWe test concerns for relative standing with respect to private consumption, income, leisure, savings, and personal characteristics, using data from a classroom survey. Our results show highest degrees of positionality for personal characteristics and income. In order to explain positionality, we employ survey participants' ratings of items with respect to (i) observability and (ii) non-psychological negative externalities on others. Based on these ratings, our results show that non-psychological externalities play an important role for an item's degree of positionality. In contrast to previous research, we find that there is no statistically significant effect of an item's observability on its degree of positionality.

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A Test of Conspicuous Consumption: Visibility and Income Elasticities

Cited by 330 publications

References 11 publications

Fiscal Policy and $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 Emissions of New Passenger Cars in the EU

Fiscal Policy and $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 Emissions of New Passenger Cars in the EU

Conspicuous consumption and “race”: Evidence from South Africa

How much do others matter? Explaining positional concerns for different goods and personal characteristics

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