Saving Rates and Poverty: The Role of Conspicuous Consumption and Human Capital
Saving Rates and Poverty: The Role of Conspicuous Consumption and Human Capital
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1468-0297.2012.02516.x
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发表时间：
2012-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Neeman, Zvika
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Moav, Omer;Neeman, Zvika
世界各地的贫困家庭将其收入的很大一部分用于消费似乎不能减轻贫困的商品，同时储蓄率很低。我们认为，个人关心经济地位，并将这种行为解释为炫耀性消费，旨在提供有关未观察到的收入的信号。我们表明，如果人力资本是可观察的，并与收入相关，那么一个信号均衡，穷人往往会花费他们的收入的很大一部分在炫耀性消费可以出现。这种均衡导致边际储蓄倾向不断增加，这可能产生贫困陷阱。
Poor families around the world spend a large fraction of their income consuming goods that do not appear to alleviate poverty, while saving at low rates. We suggest that individuals care about economic status and interpret this behaviour as conspicuous consumption intended to provide a signal about unobserved income. We show that if human capital is observable and correlated with income, then a signalling equilibrium in which poor individuals tend to spend a large fraction of their income on conspicuous consumption can emerge. This equilibrium gives rise to an increasing marginal propensity to save that might generate a poverty trap.