Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of ExcessEvery reader should consider this book critically. Author Robert H. Frank's thesis is that runaway consumption of extravagant luxuries is a major problem in American society. This concept may have seemed more valid in 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble, when the book first rolled off the presses, than it does in 2004. The intervening recession has done a lot to rearrange household consumption priorities. Yet one need only look at the houses, cars and home entertainment systems on the market to recognize that the thesis has not entirely lost all merit. For the more muscular theoretical foundation of this premise, readers are referred to the superior 100-year-old classic Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen. Even in the shadow of that light, Frank's observations about the pressures to consume - especially the evidence that he marshals for an evolutionary compulsion to "keep up with the Joneses" - merits notice. While the author's proposed remedy of a consumption tax is sure to be controversial, getAbstract.com believes this book deserves to be read and appreciates its unusually stimulating, accessible writing on economics. |
Contents
Money Well Spent? | 1 |
The Luxury Spending Boom | 14 |
Why Now? | 33 |
The Price of Luxury | 45 |
Does Money Buy Happiness? | 64 |
Gains That Endure | 75 |
Our Forgotten Future | 94 |
Excellent Relatively Speaking | 107 |
SelfHelp? | 173 |
Other Failed Remedies | 194 |
Luxury Without Apology | 207 |
Equity Versus Efficiency The Great TradeOff? | 227 |
We Cant Afford It? | 251 |
Cash on the Table | 266 |
Endnotes | 281 |
References | 295 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adapt American amount average behavior better cars changes chapter choice competition concerns about relative conspicuous consumption consumers cost costly countries Daniel Kahneman decades decisions Diener drug earn economic growth economists Ed Diener effect environmental evidence example experience fact families Ferrari 456 growing happy higher taxes human Ibid important incentives inconspicuous increase individual inequality investment larger less levels living loss aversion luxury tax males measure million national income nomic Patek Philippe per-capita percent person pollution Porsche Porsche Boxster premium problem programs progressive consumption tax progressive tax Psychology reason recent reduce relative income relative position reported result satisfaction savings rate serotonin simply smaller houses society someone spending patterns standard subjective well-being sumption sumptuary laws tax rates things tion top earners trickle-down trickle-down economics typically United vacation voluntary simplicity Wall Street Journal whereas workers York