LUXURY AND WEALTH*
构建了一个奢侈品消费的动态理论，强调追求奢侈品对财富积累的因果影响，并分析了准奢侈品偏好如何提高稳态财富水平。
I develop a dynamic theory of luxury consumption, particularly emphasizing the causal effect that pursuit of luxury goods has on wealth accumulation. A quasi‐luxury is defined as a good whose marginal rate of substitution is increasing in a utility index. Under certain conditions, it is indeed a luxury good. When current wealth holding falls short of (exceeds) long‐run needs, luxury consumption is postponed more (less) easily than necessity consumption, due to a lower (higher) time preference for luxury and/or a higher intertemporal elasticity of substitution thereof. Preferences for quasi‐luxuries lead to a higher steady‐state value of wealth or capital. Countries which have sumptuary laws, are generally poor. (Sir Dudley North, Discourses Upon Trade , 1691, p. 14)