The Present State of Consumer Theory


Book Description

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The Present State of Consumer Theory


Book Description

The neoclassical theory of choice is an integral part of a large and growing literature. Its elegance, simplicity and apparent generality appear, increasingly, to influence the thinking of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists. At the same time, the theory is subject to robust attack. The theme of the book is that the critics have it right. Account must be taken of the endogeneity of preference and value structures, of decision makers' cognitive limitations, of information asymmetries, of opportunistic behavior, and of positive transaction and decision costs. Yet these considerations militate against the specification of both the efficiency frontier and the Social Welfare Function. This, in turn, suggests that Social Welfare Theory is an inappropriate guide for the formulation of distributional and other economic policies. A corollary is that economists' (and others) attention should center less on 'getting the prices right' and more on 'getting the institutions right'.




Consumer Theory


Book Description




The Rational Consumer


Book Description

The Rational Consumer brings together eight articles that represent key points in the development of Robert Hall's ideas on consumption over the past two decades. Since the late 1960s, Robert Hall's research has had a significant impact on the macroeconomic study of consumer behavior. The Rational Consumer brings together eight articles that represent key points in the development of Hall's ideas on consumption over the past two decades. In his introduction, Hall puts this work into perspective, tying together his ideas and pointing to how consumer behavior should work in the future given what he has discovered.Working within the standard intertemporal models of consumption - the overlapping generations model and the infinite lifetime model - Hall's contributions to methodology have been especially important. Particularly noteworthy was his challenge to the prevalent model in which current consumption was seen as deriving from expected future income. Hall argued that consumption was, instead, based upon the actual present discounted value of future income.ContentsIntroduction - The Allocation of Wealth among the Generations of a Family that Lasts Forever - A Theory of Inheritance - The Dynamic Effects of Fiscal Policy in an Economy with Foresight - Consumption Taxes versus Income Taxes: Implications for Economic Growth - Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence - The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households (with Frederic S. Mishkin) - Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption - Survey of Research on the Random Walk of Consumption - The Role of Consumption in Economic Fluctuations




Consumer Culture Theory


Book Description

Outlining the key themes, concepts and theoretical areas in the field, this book draws on contributions from prominent researchers to unravel the complexities of consumer culture by looking at how it affects personal identity, social interactions and the consuming human being. A field which is characterised as being theoretically challenging is made accessible through learning features that include case study material, critical reflection, research directions, further reading and a broad mix of the types of consumers and consumption contexts including emerging markets and economies. The structure of the book is designed to help students map the field in the way it is interpreted by researchers and follows the conceptual mapping in the classic Arnould & Thompson 2005 journal article. The book is organised into three parts - the Consumption Identity, Marketplace Cultures and the Socio-Historic Patterning of Consumption. Insight is offered into both the historical roots of consumer culture and the everyday experiences of navigating the contemporary marketplace. The book is supported by a collection of international case studies and real world scenarios, including: How Fashion Bloggers Rule the Fashion World; the Kendall Jenner Pepsi Commercial; Professional Beer Pong, Military Recruiting Campaigns, The World Health Organization and the Corporatization of Education. The go-to text for anyone new to CCT or postgraduate students writing a CCT-related thesis.




Consumer Culture Theory in Asia


Book Description

"We live in times of increasing world uncertainty. Consumer culture in Asia has embodied such precariousness, with their unprecedented states of both prosperity and vulnerability. Works in this volume examine the consumer cultures that exist in today's precarious Asia. They do this through culturally oriented, critical consumer research. How deeply has the consumer precariousness in Asia been intertwined with the sociohistoric patterning of consumption including class, gender, and other social categories? How do these problematics affect consumers' identity projects, consumer rituals, and marketplace cultures? How is consumer precariousness aggravated by the governmentality of the superpower? How does the changing landscape of inter-Asian and global popular culture impact consumer culture in these nations? Together, the authors in this volume attempt to answer these questions through consumer research within the paradigm known as consumer culture theory (CCT). Since most CCT inquiry has been in Western contexts, this volume augments the existing knowledge. It presents the most current, critical, historical, and material consumer studies focused on Asia. This volume will be of interest to seasoned CCT researchers and academics, for anyone new to consumer culture theory, and for postgraduate students interested in CCT or writing a consumer culture related thesis"--




Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory


Book Description

Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory contains original research essays written by the premier thought leaders of the discipline from around the world that reflect the maturation of the field Customer Culture Theory over the last decade. The volume seeks to help break down the silos that have arisen in disciplines seeking to understand consumer culture, and speed both the diffusion of ideas and possibility of collaboration across frontiers. Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory begins with a re-evaluation of some of the fundamental notions of consumer behaviour, such as self and other, branding and pricing, and individual vs. communal agency then continuing with a reconsideration of role configurations as they affect consumption, examining in particular the ramifications of familial, gender, ethnic and national aspects of consumers’ lived experiences. The book move on to a reappraisal of the state of the field, examining the rhetoric of inquiry, the reflexive history and critique of the discipline, the prospect of redirecting the effort of inquiry to practical and humanitarian ends, the neglected wellsprings of our intellectual heritage, and the ideological underpinnings of the evolving construction of the concept of the brand. Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory is a reflective assessment, in theoretical, empirical and evocative keys, of the state of the field of consumer culture theory and an indication of the scholarly directions in which the discipline is evolving providing reflection upon a rapidly expanding discipline and altered consumption-scapes by some of its prime movers.




Variable Quality in Consumer Theory


Book Description

Examines consumer decision-making on products and services of variable quality at the level of retail markets. Addresses for the first time consumer-producer interaction at the level of the individual consumer; issues of quality, consumption experience, and willingness-to-pay, as exhibited by individual consumers; and how these issues affect the decision-making process.