Conspicuous Consumption, Human Capital and Poverty

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Conspicuous Consumption, Human Capital and Poverty

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Moav, Omer
Neeman, Zvika

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Omer Moav

Abstract

Poor families around the world spend a large fraction of their income on consumption of goods that appear to be useless in alleviating poverty, while saving at very low rates and neglecting investment in health and education. Such consumption patterns seem to be related to the persistence of poverty. We offer an explanation for this observation, based on a trade-off between conspicuous consumption and human capital as signals for unobserved income, under the assumption that individuals care about their status. Despite homothetic preferences, this trade-off gives rise to a convex saving function, which can help explain the persistence of poverty.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 6864.

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Date of creation: Jun 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6864

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
O11 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2008-06-21 (All new papers)
NEP-DEV-2008-06-21 (Development)
NEP-HAP-2008-06-21 (Economics of Happiness)
NEP-HRM-2008-06-21 (Human Capital & Human Resource Management)

References listed on IDEAS
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Other versions:
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Other versions:
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Other versions:
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Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado & Ngo Van Long, 2009. "Envy And Inequality," Departmental Working Papers 2009-03, McGill University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]

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