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Luxury Fever: Weighing the Cost of Excess Paperback – Sept. 25 2000

by Robert H. Frank (Author)
3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 5 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
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Princeton University Press
  4. Publication date
    Sept. 25 2000
  5. Dimensions
    15.24 x 1.91 x 22.86 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0691070113
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0691070117
  8. See all details
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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 (Sept. 25 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691070113
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691070117
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 476 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 1.91 x 22.86 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 5 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.

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3.6 out of 5 stars
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Robert Costanza
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart for One, Dumb for All
Reviewed in Canada 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.
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K. Johnson
4.0 out of 5 stars Let Them Be Lemmings
Reviewed in Canada on February 3, 2003
Let Them Be Lemmings
Some factual common trends are noted by Frank: in general, wages in the U.S. have been static and even in decline for most Americans in recent decades. Yet, proportional per capita spending on luxury goods has increased significantly. The results according to this author and others who've conducted numerous studies and research is a weaker economy, high personal debt, longer working hours, less sleep, and having to work until death, in debt of course.
We're all aware of the American "gotta have this or that" bug. Many have it, but many don't. Some don't want it. Why do certain luxury goods and "gadgets" become oh-so-popular in American society? Frank notes, and correctly, that the desire for many to purchase certain material things is by no-doubt influenced by what others are buying or want to buy.
The concept of "social status" is a concept where human beings in mass-consumption cultures judge each other in this context in RELATION to our peers. These "peers" may be the strangers we live next to in suburban anonymity, our co-workers, friends, or the strangers we see driving next to us in our daily suburban traffic jams. (Note my use of the word "stranger").
The commonly known terms such as "keeping up with the Joneses," the status treadmill" the "arms race of consumerism, Consumer Feticism," and Velben's "Conspicuous Consumption" are presented. But not from a moralistic standpoint but a behaviorist, biological, psychological, and an economic standpoint.
The first part of the book informs us about many things we already aware of but expands upon it through the various academic fields already noted above. The second part of the book is the "solution part." What the author thinks can be done to change the current pattern. Here's where it can get sticky for some. The solution Frank offers from his research is a thesis on Human Behaviour, and he proposes a "political-economic" solution: taxing consumption. The solution is the part of this work that leads to the economic analysis of the "hypothetical" once again, and there's nothing wrong with that. Although theoretical, the first part is interesting, and the second part may be for some.
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John Clifford Schuler
4.0 out of 5 stars Luxury Fever also explains why US jobs are disappearing.
Reviewed in Canada on June 28, 2003
Professor Frank's title for Chaper 10 'smart for one dumb for all' sums up much of the recent business and political behavior in our country.
Jobs are going to China and a flood of imports are drowning our factories because our government and business leaders are practicing "smart for one" while our country slides toward the status of a 3rd world nation.
It is said that a nation's wealth is measured by what it can manufacture - not by what it consumes (who said that?)
Every CEO worth his or her salt these days is moving manufacturing operations overseas as fast as possile to get a piece of the short-term profits under "smart for one". If this continues, the 'dumb for all' effect will doom us to to poverty and China will (again?) rule the world of commerce.
Luxury Fever is a great book which should be read by every person who cares about the USA over the long haul - especially our elected officials. I'd like to see RH Franks (Luxury Fever) team up with Ravi Batra (The Myth of Free Trade) as lobbyists to return sanity to our country's business climate.
Adam Smith has been taken out of context. When he spoke about the "Invisible Hand" (of commerce) there was an ethic in the land that accepted pervasive empathy as a given. Today, our leaders push unbridled avarice and seem to think that empathy is only for the weak 'players'.
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