Trickle-Down Consumption
研究发现，当高收入群体的收入和消费水平提高时，非富裕家庭会消费更多当前收入，尤其是增加对可见商品和服务的支出，这可能是为了维持社会地位。若顶层收入增长与中位数同步，非富裕家庭本可多储蓄高达3%。
We document that nonrich households consume a larger share of their current income when exposed to higher top income and consumption levels. Permanent income, wealth effects, and upward local price pressures cannot provide the sole explanation for this finding. Instead, we show that the budget shares that nonrich households allocate to more visible goods and services rise with top income levels, consistent with status-maintaining explanations for our primary finding. Nonrich households might have saved up to 3% more annually by the mid-2000s had incomes at the top grown at the same rate as median income since the early 1980s.