IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/mareco/v8y2014i3p215-235.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is there a Corruption-effect on Conspicuous Consumption?

Author

Listed:
  • Omer Gokcekus
  • Yui Suzuki

Abstract

This study empirically explores the following issue: Does corruption fuel conspicuous consumption? It examines the existence and magnitude of any potential corruption-effect on conspicuous consumption expenditure. Regression analyses of an unbalanced panel data for 20 OECD countries between 2004 and 2010 indicate that luxury car sales are higher by 191 per cent in a country with a high perceived corruption level, for example, CPI score of 4.5, as compared to a country with a low perceived corruption level, for example, CPI score of 9.0, ceteris paribus. JEL Classification: D12; D73

Suggested Citation

  • Omer Gokcekus & Yui Suzuki, 2014. "Is there a Corruption-effect on Conspicuous Consumption?," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 8(3), pages 215-235, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:mareco:v:8:y:2014:i:3:p:215-235
    DOI: 10.1177/0973801014531135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0973801014531135
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0973801014531135?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Martinsson, Peter, 2006. "Honestly, why are you driving a BMW?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 129-146, June.
    2. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Erik Hurst & Nikolai Roussanov, 2009. "Conspicuous Consumption and Race," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 425-467.
    3. Omer Gokcekus & Justin Myzie, 2008. "Why and How to Move from Capturing Perception of to Quantifying Corruption?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: King Banaian & Bryan Roberts (ed.), The Design and Use of Political Economy Indicators, chapter 0, pages 139-153, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Stillman, Tyler F. & Fincham, Frank D. & Vohs, Kathleen D. & Lambert, Nathaniel M. & Phillips, Christa A., 2012. "The material and immaterial in conflict: Spirituality reduces conspicuous consumption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 1-7.
    5. Khamis, Melanie & Prakash, Nishith & Siddique, Zahra, 2012. "Consumption and social identity: Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 353-371.
    6. Mr. Manik L. Shrestha & Mr. Adriaan M. Bloem, 2000. "Comprehensive Measures of GDP and the Unrecorded Economy," IMF Working Papers 2000/204, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Johann Graf Lambsdorff, 2003. "How Corruption Affects Productivity," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 457-474, November.
    8. Lambsdorff, Johann Graf, 2002. "Making corrupt deals: contracting in the shadow of the law," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 221-241, July.
    9. King Banaian & Bryan Roberts (ed.), 2008. "The Design and Use of Political Economy Indicators," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-61662-2.
    10. Chao, Angela & Schor, Juliet B., 1998. "Empirical tests of status consumption: Evidence from women's cosmetics," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 107-131, February.
    11. Chowdhury, Shyamal K., 2004. "The effect of democracy and press freedom on corruption: an empirical test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 93-101, October.
    12. Truong, Yann & McColl, Rod, 2011. "Intrinsic motivations, self-esteem, and luxury goods consumption," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 555-561.
    13. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju & Seppo Ikäheimo, 2008. "Social Influence and Consumption: Evidence from the Automobile Purchases of Neighbors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 735-753, November.
    14. Ori Heffetz, 2011. "A Test of Conspicuous Consumption: Visibility and Income Elasticities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1101-1117, November.
    15. Sanjeev Gupta & Hamid Davoodi & Rosa Alonso-Terme, 2002. "Does corruption affect income inequality and poverty?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 23-45, March.
    16. Corneo, Giacomo & Jeanne, Olivier, 1997. "Conspicuous consumption, snobbism and conformism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 55-71, October.
    17. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2010. "The worldwide governance indicators : methodology and analytical issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5430, The World Bank.
    18. Gokcekus, Omer & Knorich, Jan, 2006. "Does quality of openness affect corruption?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 190-196, May.
    19. Dominik H. Enste & Friedrich Schneider, 2000. "Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 77-114, March.
    20. Bagwell, Laurie Simon & Bernheim, B Douglas, 1996. "Veblen Effects in a Theory of Conspicuous Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 349-373, June.
    21. Gokcekus, Omer, 2008. "Is it protestant tradition or current protestant population that affects corruption?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 59-62, April.
    22. Johann Lambsdorff, 2003. "How corruption affects persistent capital flows," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 229-243, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:pdn:wpaper:70 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Reza Tajaddini & Hassan F. Gholipour, 2018. "Control of Corruption and Luxury Goods Consumption," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(4), pages 613-641, November.
    3. Ünay Tamgaç Tezcan, 2016. "Reference Groups And Household Consumption: Evidence From Turkey," Ekonomi-tek - International Economics Journal, Turkish Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 71-107, January.
    4. Pablo Zárate, 2021. "Signaling corruption through conspicuous consumption," Young Researchers Working Papers 2, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Oct 2022.
    5. Eugen Dimant & Guglielmo Tosato, 2018. "Causes And Effects Of Corruption: What Has Past Decade'S Empirical Research Taught Us? A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 335-356, April.
    6. Lu, Juan & Li, He, 2023. "The impact of environmental corruption on green consumption: A quantitative analysis based on China's Judicial Document Network and Baidu Index," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Friedrichsen, Jana, 2016. "Signals sell: Designing a product line when consumers have social image concerns," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2016-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Friedrichsen, Jana, 2018. "Signals Sell: Product Lines when Consumers Differ Both in Taste for Quality and Image Concern," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 70, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    3. Bing Han & David Hirshleifer & Johan Walden, 2023. "Visibility Bias in the Transmission of Consumption Beliefs and Undersaving," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1647-1704, June.
    4. Friedrichsen, Jana, 2013. "Image concerns and the provision of quality," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2013-211, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    5. Banuri, Sheheryar & Nguyen, Ha, 2023. "Borrowing to keep up (with the Joneses): Inequality, debt, and conspicuous consumption," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 222-242.
    6. König, Tobias & Lausen, Tobias, 2016. "Relative consumption preferences and public provision of private goods," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2016-213, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    7. Friedrichsen, Jana & König, Tobias & Schmacker, Renke, 2018. "Social image concerns and welfare take-up," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 168, pages 174-192.
    8. Raghunath Singh Rao & Richard Schaefer, 2013. "Conspicuous Consumption and Dynamic Pricing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(5), pages 786-804, September.
    9. Leites, Martín & Rivero, Analía & Salas, Gonzalo, 2024. "The positionality of goods and the positional concern’s origin," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    10. Sugata Marjit & Arijit Mukherjee & Koushik Kumar Hati, 2015. "Relative Social Status and Conflicting Measures of Poverty: A Behavioural Analytical Model," Discussion Papers 2015-02, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    11. Wenhua Di & Yichen Su, 2021. "Conspicuous Consumption: Vehicle Purchases by Non-Prime Consumers," Working Papers 2107, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    12. Gurzki, Hannes & Woisetschläger, David M., 2017. "Mapping the luxury research landscape: A bibliometric citation analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 147-166.
    13. Kangsik Choi, 2014. "A Note On Pricing Of Product Quality For Status Concerns," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 333-345, October.
    14. David Clingingsmith & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2018. "Status and the demand for visible goods: experimental evidence on conspicuous consumption," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(4), pages 877-904, December.
    15. Mitra, Aruni & Mukherji, Ronit, 2024. "Class, Caste and Conspicuous Consumption in India," MPRA Paper 121824, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Pascal Courty & Merwan Engineer, 2019. "A pure hedonic theory of utility and status: Unhappy but efficient invidious comparisons," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(4), pages 601-621, August.
    17. Chi, Feng & Yang, Nathan, 2010. "Wealth and Status: Analyzing the Perceived Attractiveness of 2010 FIFA World Cup Players," MPRA Paper 23881, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Sung-Ha HwangBy & Jungmin Lee, 2017. "Conspicuous consumption and income inequality," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 870-896.
    19. Omer Moav and & Zvika Neeman, 2012. "Saving Rates and Poverty: The Role of Conspicuous Consumption and Human Capital," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(563), pages 933-956, September.
    20. Di, Wenhua & Su, Yichen, 2024. "Conspicuous consumption: Vehicle purchases by non-prime consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 895-914.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; Conspicuous Consumption; Luxury Cars;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:mareco:v:8:y:2014:i:3:p:215-235. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ncaer.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.