In 1899, Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase 'conspicuous consumption' to describe status-seeking in the obscenely unequal world of late-nineteenth century America. Many of the aspects he described in ...

Does this oft-maligned human behavior offering us anything other than the opportunity to show off? Here's what the research says.

In 1899, Thorstein Veblen introduced socially contingent consumption into the economic literature ... and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods. We ...

This behavior is known as conspicuous consumption because these consumers want others to see them with the product. Until now, it has been assumed that conspicuous consumption is irrational and ...

Such ideas hark back to an economist and sociologist named Thorstein Veblen, who invented the concept of conspicuous consumption back in 1899. Charles Coolidge Parlin had read his Veblen.

TUBERCULOSIS AND GENIUS—Lewis J. Moorman — University of Chicago Press ($2.50). Despite the mountain air of Parnassus, the nine Muses probably have hacking coughs. Genius and tuberculosis, as ...

To get the timing right, it's essential to understand conspicuous consumption first. In his classic 1899 work, The Theory of ...

According to economist Thorstein Veblen, conspicuous consumption results in a counter-intuitive dynamic: Increasing a luxury item’s cost can actually lead to higher demand. But no social scientist has ...

Wilson, Anne, Silvia Bellezza, and Michael I. Norton. "Minimalism as a Status Symbol: When and Why We Admire Conspicuous Non-Consumption." Working Paper, October 2019.

Legendary novelist John Dos Passos tells the story of economist Thorstein Veblen, the outspoken Progressive Era critic of capitalism who coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” ...

Economist Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” in his seminal book The Theory of the Leisure Class in 1899. Despite protests to the contrary – few will admit they buy ...