Status and the demand for visible goods: experimental evidence on conspicuous consumption
通过实验改变购买是否公开可见以及收入是否与地位挂钩，发现只有当收入与地位相关时，公开可见才会大幅增加需求，并估计了该效应对福利的影响。
Abstract Some economists argue that consumption of publicly visible goods is driven by social status. Making a causal inference about this claim is difficult with observational data. We conduct an experiment in which we vary both whether a purchase of a physical product is publicly visible or kept private and whether the income used for purchase is linked to social status or randomly assigned. Making consumption choices visible leads to a large increase in demand when income is linked to status, but not otherwise. We investigate the characteristics that mediate this effect and estimate its impact on welfare.