Wedding Celebrations as Conspicuous Consumption
研究印度农村家庭婚礼支出的决定因素，构建地位信号模型，利用村庄外婚制差异作为自然实验，实证检验婚礼规模对家庭社会地位的信号作用。
We examine the determinants of expenditures on wedding celebrations by rural Indian families. We develop a status signaling model of wedding celebrations where the size of the celebration signals the quality of the new groom9s family and, thus, the enhanced social status of the bride9s family. Predictions from the model are tested with survey data from South India using a natural experiment derived from variations in norms of village exogamy—when daughters have to marry grooms from another village—to identify the availability of information on the groom9s family to the bride9s village. The econometric results are consistent with a status signaling interpretation.