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| Title: | | From status-seeking consumption to social norms: An application to the consumption of cleanliness  |
| Authors: | | Woersdorfer, Julia Sophie |
| Issue Date: | | 2008 |
| Series/Report no.: | | Papers on economics and evolution 0810 |
| Abstract: | | Interdependencies in consumer behavior stem from either status-seeking consumption or compliance with social norms. This paper analyzes how a consumption act changes from a means to signal the consumer's status to a means of norm compliance. It is shown that such a transformation can only be understood when consumer motivations other than social recognition are taken into account. We depict norm emergence as a learning process based on changing associations between a specific consumption act and widely shared, non-subjectivist consumer needs. Our conjectures are illustrated by means of a case study: the emergence of the cleanliness norm in the 19th century. |
| Subjects: | | social norms status seeking externalities consumer needs consumer learning cleanliness |
| JEL: | | D02 D11 D62 D83 |
| Document Type: | | Working Paper |
| Appears in Collections: | | Papers on Economics and Evolution, MPI für Ökonomik
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