Keeping up with the Joneses to Impress the Smiths: Conspicuous Consumption in a Society with Income Segregation
构建信号模型研究收入隔离如何影响炫耀性消费，发现无论消费者是随大流者还是爱炫耀者，收入隔离程度越高，炫耀性消费总是更高。
Abstract I develop a signalling model to study how income segregation impacts conspicuous consumption when neighbourhood income distributions are the reference for social comparisons, but consumers signal to an outside observer. Consumers can have different attitudes to status: conformists have a greater incentive for conspicuous consumption when they have many well-off neighbours, while snobs have a greater incentive when they have few well-off neighbours. Despite the neighbourhood income distribution affecting the incentives of snobs and conformists in starkly different ways, I show that conspicuous consumption is always higher in a more segregated society.