Conspicuous consumption and “race”: Evidence from South Africa

Kaus, Wolfhard

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2012.07.004

Cited by 100 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The concept of "aspirational" consumer is well known in the marketing literature and has been studied also by economists (Cowan et al, 1997). For example, Kaus (2013) shows that rapid social change renders imitation of consumer styles more visible. In our model we assume that the emergence of a new, wealthier class which adopts more conspicuous consumption preferences (more selective with respect to quality and less selective with respect to price), consumers from all other existing classes shift their preferences, reducing (increasing) price (quality) selectivity.…”

Section: Consumer Selection Of Goods and Firmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The complex interactions between economic growth and market concentration in a model of structural change

Ciarli

Valente

2016

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics

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We study the relation between variety, market concentration, and economic growth, along different phases of economic development which entail a number of changes to the structure of production and consumption in the economy. We focus on three aspects of structural change, which are connected and are correlated to variety, market concentration, and economic growth: (i) product quality; (ii) firms' mark-ups; and (iii) imitation of consumer preferences for price and quality. We model the interactions among several aspects of structural change such as firm size and hierarchical structure, innovation in capital vintages, the emergence of social classes, income distribution, and consumer preferences across and within classes. We find that market concentration has a significant and positive impact on economic growth only in the presence of sufficiently large demand. The strongest effects emerge in the presence of a more skewed firm size distribution and firms producing higher priced and higher quality goods. We find also that this effect is influenced strongly by different aspects of structural change. Changes in the behaviour (or income) of the less wealthy income classes is crucial as is investment in new capital vintages, and the emergence of diverse income classes with heterogeneous consumption preferences. In contrast, we find that supply side product variety, coeteris paribus, has no significant effect on growth.

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Section: Consumer Selection Of Goods and Firmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The complex interactions between economic growth and market concentration in a model of structural change

Ciarli

Valente

2016

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics

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“…status concerns, the differences in status good expenditures between households belonging to different reference groups will disappear once the average income of the relevant reference group is controlled for. 14 Charles, Hurst andRoussanov (2009) andKaus (2012) perform such tests based on racial differences in the USA and South Africa, respectively. In line with these applications, we add the average reference group income of migrant and non-migrant households in the current place of residence (defined here by city of residence and migration status) to regression 5 of Table 5.…”

Section: Results On Status Consumption and Signalingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Status signaling becomes even more important as the social cohesion of an individual's environment decreases and mobility rises. That is, more anonymous and frequent interaction with others-as is the case for newly arrived migrants in dynamic cities of emerging economies-makes status consumption a powerful tool to signal one's relative position (Kaus, 2012). Accordingly, internal migrants might spend more on status consumption in order to define their social position.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Showing off to the new neighbors? Income, socioeconomic status and consumption patterns of internal migrants

Danzer

Dietz

Gatskova

et al. 2014

Journal of Comparative Economics

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“…This study specifically looks at the Black middle class, as this segment differs from their White counterparts culturally, influencing their consumption preferences and choices (Burger, Louw, de Oliveira Pegado & van der Berg, 2015;Donaldson, Mehlomakhulu, Darkey Dyssel & Siyongwana, 2013;Kaus, 2013). This study answers the research question, how can marketers segment this important Black middle class segment in a way that will result in effective retailing and marketing practices.…”

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confidence: 99%

Black middle class township shoppers: a shopper typology

Mashaba

Wiese

2015

The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer R

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Due to an increase in spending power amongst Black middle class, this growing segment has become a lucrative investment opportunity for many retailers in South Africa and most emerging markets. The purpose of this study is to segment township consumers according to their demographics, life stage, attitudes towards township shopping centres and Living Standards Measure, to understand shopping patterns of township consumers. A survey among Soweto Black middle class township respondents was conducted, and maximum likelihood factor analysis was used to identify attitudes towards township mall factors. The study revealed five factors namely: entertainment, convenience, mall essence, staff and mall basics, which were all consistent with previous studies, with the exception of staff and mall basics, which was revealed in this study. A Kmeans cluster analysis was then used to segment township shoppers according to their attitudes.Four shopper segments were discovered, namely: disappointed crusaders, upcoming loyals, social seekers and local loyals, which, despite investigating shopper attitudes in place of shopper behaviour alone, were similar to well-establish shopper typologies. Each segment was profiled according to demographic variables, attitudes as well as shopping patterns. Results therefore suggest that retailers and developers need to consider the unique needs and differences among Black middle class consumers when developing retail strategies as they reveal unique characteristics from typical shopper typologies. Given similarities in some emerging countries such as India, the findings of this study could be generalized to other middle class consumers from emerging markets. Similar shopper segments may arise, which may be consistent with previous shopper typology studies and new segments unique to emerging market middle class consumer may be unveiled.

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Conspicuous consumption and “race”: Evidence from South Africa

Cited by 100 publications

References 25 publications

The complex interactions between economic growth and market concentration in a model of structural change

The complex interactions between economic growth and market concentration in a model of structural change

Showing off to the new neighbors? Income, socioeconomic status and consumption patterns of internal migrants

Black middle class township shoppers: a shopper typology

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