Research Catalog

Title

Luxury fever : why money fails to satisfy in an era of excess / Robert H. Frank.

Author

Frank, Robert H.

Publication

New York, NY : Free Press, [1999], ©1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

326 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

• Robert Frank caused a national debate in 1995 when he and co-author Philip Cook described the poisonous spread of "winner-take-all" markets. Now he takes a thought-provoking look at the flip side of spreading inequality: as the super-rich set the pace, everyone else spends furiously in a competitive echo of wastefulness.
• Frank offers the first comprehensive and accessible summary of scientific evidence that our spending choices are not making us as happy and healthy as they could. Furthermore, he argues that human frailty is not at fault. The good news is that we can do something about it. We can make it harder for the super-rich to overspend, and capture our own competitive energy for the public good. Luxury Fever boldly offers a way to curb the excess and restore the true value of money.

Subject

• Wealth > United States
• Luxury
• Consumption (Economics) > United States
• Competition > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 295-316) and index.

Contents

1. Money Well Spent? -- 2. The Luxury Spending Boom -- 3. Why Now? -- 4. The Price of Luxury -- 5. Does Money Buy Happiness? -- 6. Gains That Endure -- 7. Our Forgotten Future -- 8. Excellent, Relatively Speaking -- 9. Why Context and Position Are So Important -- 10. Smart for One, Dumb for All -- 11. Understanding Conspicuous Consumption -- 12. Self Help? -- 13. Other Failed Remedies -- 14. Luxury Without Apology -- 15. Equity Versus Efficiency: The Great Trade-Off? -- 16. We Can't Afford It? -- 17. Cash on the Table.

ISBN

0684842343

LCCN

98045030

OCLC

ocm39875262

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries