Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Reinstaller Andreas
Author-Name: Sanditov Bulat
Author-workplace-name: MERIT
Title: Social norms and equality of opportunity in conspicuous consumption: on the diffusion of consumer good innovation
Abstract: This paper presents a simple evolutionary model to study the diffusion patterns of product innovations for consumer goods. Following a Veblenian theme, we interpretconsumption as a social activity constrained by social norms and equality of opportunity. Societies that allow for more behavioral variety will experience faster adoption of new consumer goods. We also find that the speed of diffusion as well as the saturation levels reached highly depend on the equality of opportunity. Combining these two effects, we conclude that a social structure displaying behavioral variety and equal opportunities dominates any other social set-up in terms of the speed of adoption of product innovations.
Keywords: economics of technology ; 
Series: Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 2003
Number: 017
File-URL: http://digitalarchive.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fedora/objects/guid:f5e6d8d0-5f04-4372-a67a-914277f38a06/datastreams/ASSET1/content
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 514969
Handle: RePEc:unm:umamer:2003017