Signaling Status: The Impact of Relative Income on Household Consumption and Financial Decisions
利用消费者金融调查与美国社区调查数据，研究发现普查区内相对富裕的家庭会借更多债、花更多钱购买高档汽车，以向邻居彰显地位；收入不平等加剧了这一效应。
This paper investigates the importance of status in household consumption and credit decisions using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances linked to tract-level data in the American Community Survey. We find that relatively richer households in the census tract use more debt and spend more on high-status cars. Also, county-level evidence shows that the consumption of high-status cars is higher in more unequal counties. These results suggest that greater income heterogeneity might shape household consumption and credit decisions, as relatively richer households signal their higher status to their neighbors through the consumption of visible status goods. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance.