This contribution provides a game theoretical derivation of market demand as a function of the level and distribution of income in the considered economy: if (i) the price is low, everyone buys the good; if (ii ) the price is high, only the rich buy the good (a status good in a narrow sense). If...

Conspicuous consumption of luxuries plays a central role in the work of Thorstein B. Veblen. More recently, interpersonal effects have emerged as an important factor in consumption theory. However, the inadequate modelling of individuals interaction often leads to questionable results with...

The paper formalizes the intuition that brands are consumed for image reasons and that advertising creates a brand's image. The key idea is that advertising informs the public of brand names and creates the possibility of conspicuous consumption by rendering brands a signalling device. In a...