Why Chinese elites buy what they buy: The signalling value of conspicuous consumption in China
Xiaotong Jin
Centre for Quantitative Economics, Jilin University Business School
Hefeng Wang
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Tianxin Wang
Jilin Academy of Social Sciences
Yang Li
Peking University
Shengliang Deng
Jilin University School of Management/Goodman School of Business, Brock University
The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.
(Veblen 1899, p. 51)
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