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Robert H. Frank
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Luxury Fever Paperback – September 5, 2000

by Robert H. Frank (Author)
3.3 3.3 out of 5 stars 10 ratings
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The turn of the twenty-first century witnessed a spectacular rise in gross consumption. With the super-rich setting the pace, everyone spent furiously in a desperate attempt to keep up. As cars and houses grew larger and more expensive, the costs were enormous--not only monetarily but also socially. Consumers spent more time at work and less time with their family and friends; they saved less money and borrowed more.

In this book, Robert Frank presents the first comprehensive and accessible account of these financial choices. Frank uses scientific evidence to demonstrate how these spending patterns have not made us happier or healthier. Luxury Fever offers an exit from the rat race, suggesting ways to curb the culture of excess and restore true value to our lives.

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  1. Print length
    326 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Princeton University Press
  4. Publication date
    September 5, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0691070113
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0691070117
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Luxury Fever is an important book. . . . It's admirable that an economist makes use of the research of behavioral biologists and evolutionary psychologists to explain why consumers spend as they do." ― USA Today

"Frank's analysis should be just as interesting to those who do not share his political position as to those who do."---Samuel Brittan, Times Literary Supplement

"One does not have to be the kind of person who complains about fat-cat City salaries to wonder whether certain wealthy people are not, on the one hand, rich beyond utility, and spending their money on things that no sane consumer needs, on the other. Robert Frank's thoughtful study of conspicuous consumption . . . has a dreadful fascination." ― Sunday Times

"The shop-till-you-drop, 'retail therapy' culture may have become more dominant in the last few years. . . . But are we really any happier for it? One person who thinks we are not is Robert Frank . . . whose new book, Luxury Fever, has been causing a bit of a stir. . . . The burst of consumerism in the U.S. . . . gives a new bite to these well-rehearsed concerns." ― The Independent

About the Author

Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and professor of economics at Cornell University, as well as an economics columnist for the New York Times. His books include The Winner-Take-All Society (with Philip Cook), What Price the Moral High Ground?, The Economic Naturalist, and Principles of Economics (with Ben Bernanke).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press; New edition (September 5, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 326 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691070113
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691070117
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.3 3.3 out of 5 stars 10 ratings

About the author

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Robert H. Frank

Robert H. Frank

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Robert H. Frank received his M.A. in statistics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971, and his Ph.D. in economics in 1972, also from U.C. Berkeley. He is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics at Cornell University, where he has taught since 1972 and where he currently holds a joint appointment in the department of economics and the Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has published on a variety of subjects, including price and wage discrimination, public utility pricing, the measurement of unemployment spell lengths, and the distributional consequences of direct foreign investment. For the past several years, his research has focused on rivalry and cooperation in economic and social behaviour.

Customer reviews

3.3 out of 5 stars
3.3 out of 5
10 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Izrael
3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting book
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2006
Certainly interesting and worthwhile, but if you want to read much of the same themes, with a broader biological perspective and without the preachiness and impractical political solutions, I recommend instead Happiness by Daniel Nettles.
3 people found this helpful
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Cal Bear
2.0 out of 5 stars Borrow don't buy this book
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2005
This purported economist cherry picks his stats (a common historical comparison of his hodgepodge of stats would provide greater credence) in order to substantiate his position that Americans are infected with a consumption fever. Although his overall contention about the increased consumption of "luxury goods" is true, his patent moralizing discredits what should otherwise be his nonbiased academic standing and casts doubts about his recommendations. What is even more offensive is his implicit assumption that Americans are weak & stupid because of things such as the proliferation of credit cards "causes" them to spend beyond their means. This assumption is akin to overweight Americans blaming McDonald's for their obesity.

This book is for you if you believe that government officials (i.e. Big Brother) should be the arbiters of your behavior and that the individual is never to blame or to take the consequences of his/her actions.

I recommend reading "Living It Up" by Twitchell instead.
15 people found this helpful
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Paula L. Craig
4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Diagnosis
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2005
Frank's point is essentially that Americans spend too much on luxury goods that don't bring them satisfaction, and too little on things they really could make them happier. He makes a good case for using a consumption tax to remedy the situation. I really enjoyed the analysis of homo economicus versus homo realisticus. Frank argues that homo economicus (as used in mainstream economics) is concerned with rational betterment of his situation, while real people are concerned as much or even more with doing better than those around them. When I studied economics I realized that something was wrong with the standard homo economicus model, but Frank lays out the differences very clearly, in ways I hadn't thought of.

Frank has some great commentary on the human condition here, too. My favorite is his analysis of why it helps to get up in the morning if you put your alarm clock out of reach of the bed. If you don't see what this has to do with economics--read the book!

Frank makes some proposals that I think are bluntly naive. For example, he proposes curing unemployment by a program of public works. This simply cannot work. It has, of course, been tried, including the attempt by the Washington DC municipal government in recent decades. Inevitably it leads to dependency and corruption, and a multiplication of the number of people needing public jobs. Frank needs to think more about where the incentives are in such a situation. In my opinion, if the streets are littered with garbage that isn't being picked up, you have to look at where the garbage is coming from and who is benefitting from creating it. It should be sellers of plastic bottles, paper cups, and the like who should be paying for picking up litter from the streets, not general tax funds. Frank also needs to pay more attention to population issues. No public works program can support a continually increasing number of people. I think Frank also overlooks the large role in overconsumption of having no limits on the interest rates which credit card and mortgage companies are allowed to charge. Unlimited rates means that such companies have a vested interest in keeping the maximum possible number of Americans on the edge of bankruptcy, and not much of an interest in making sure they lend money only to people who are likely to be able to pay it back.

Overall, though, this is a book with some useful and interesting ideas.
23 people found this helpful
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Robert Costanza
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart for One, Dumb for All
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2001
Economist Robert H. Frank has written a stimulating book that integrates research from psychology, evolutionary biology, and economics to address the raging "luxury fever" that is needlessly consuming precious resources in "overdeveloped" economies. Frank documents how luxury consumption in western industrialized countries has been rising at an astronomical rate, even though the latest psychological research shows that there is scant correlation between this consumption and levels of stated life satisfaction. Why, then, are wrist watches costing $20,000, huge houses of 10,000 sq. ft. and more, and myriad other forms of conspicuous individual consumption rapidly increasing, even as social spending on education, infrastructure, the environment, and other things that would raise the average level of life satisfaction in society decreasing? Frank describes how this perverse "luxury fever" occurs when individuals pursue their strong individual incentives to increase their relative position in society by consuming more than their peers. But when everyone does this, relative consumption (and perceived life satisfaction) remain constant, while absolute consumption (and related negative impacts on natural resource use, the environment, education spending, etc.) soars. Luxury fever is one of a class of phenomena known by various names in different disciplines, including: negative externalities, social traps, social dilemmas, the prisoner's dilemma, and the tragedy of the commons. Frank cleverly labels these phenomena as situations that are "smart for one, but dumb for all." Once one begins to look, there are clear examples of these situations everywhere, ranging from drug addiction to pesticide overuse to arms races to environmental pollution and even women's fashions. While economists have recognized these phenomena, they have largely been relegated to the status of interesting but relatively minor anomalies. But Frank clearly points out just how pervasive, important, and wasteful they are, and how eliminating them can save literally billions of dollars while actually improving welfare. The "invisible hand" of the market cannot be relied upon to solve these problems, because, as Frank notes: "Far from being a principle that applies in most circumstances, the invisible hand is valid only in the special case in which each individual's rewards are completely independent of the choices made by others. In the rivalrous world we live in, precious few examples spring to mind." (pp 271) Frank's solution to luxury fever is a strongly progressive consumption tax. This could be done in the US with a simple one-line amendment in the tax code to exempt all savings from income taxation. With this modification, the income tax would tax only consumption, without having to specify which consumption was "luxury consumption" and (because of its steep progressivity) without adversely affecting the poor. This consumption tax would have the effect of increasing the costs to individuals of conspicuous consumption (and thus reducing it), while freeing up significant resources to pursue increased "inconspicuous consumption" - things like education, infrastructure, environmental protection, and family time. Given the psychology of relative consumption and satisfaction noted above, this could occur with absolutely no decrease in welfare. In fact, average life satisfaction would increase because relative individual consumption would not change and the neglected forms of social consumption could be increased with the resources from the tax. Why has so obvious a "win-win" move not already occurred, and what are its chances in the future? Frank answers the first part of this question with the famous joke about the economist who sees a ten dollar bill lying in the street and concludes that it couldn't really be a ten dollar bill because if it were someone would have already picked it up. The first step is to clearly and convincingly lay out the problem and the solution as Frank has done - in effect to point out the existence of the $10 bill just lying on the ground. But the idea of a broad consumption tax (and the reasons for it) has been around for many years. It was first proposed by Thomas Hobbes in 1651 and has surfaced many times during the last 300 years. Frank concludes that it will just be a matter of time before the obvious benefits of such a tax are recognized and the plan is implemented - after all, most political changes have a significant gestation period. But there are also obvious impediments to implementing such a tax in the current political climate. In political systems run more and more by special interests it is difficult to implement any policy that might hurt even one of those interests - even if only in the short run. Overcoming the political impediments to any form of meaningful tax reform will require "government by discussion" rather than by interest groups and media manipulation. If social issues of the importance of those in Frank's book can be discussed rationally by the society at large then such obvious social "win-win" solutions as ecological tax reform and a progressive consumption tax can be appreciated and implemented. In a few countries this kind of social discussion occurs reasonably well, but in most it is a far cry from the current political reality. Just as it is very difficult for an animal caught in a trap to free itself, it is also very difficult for a society caught in a social trap to free itself, even when the nature of the trap and the way out has been clearly identified. Lets hope we don't have to bite off our social foot to escape the invisible hand.
34 people found this helpful
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