编者按：2025年4月26日，学院举办第一届“经济学科贸大校友学术论坛”，邀请多位活跃在学术研究、政策咨询和产业实践前沿的优秀校友返校，分享学术成果与前沿洞见，展示贸大经济人的风采与担当。未来，学院将秉承“研道以经邦 育才以济世”之精神，持续搭建高质量交流平台，面向学术界、产业界等各领域广泛邀约优秀校友返校开设专题讲座与学术论坛。

报告人：乔良 (南开大学u8国际助理教授、美国亚利桑那大学经济学博士、教育部哲学社会科学实验室专项资金研究项目主持人)

题目：Conspicuous Consumption and Individual Financial Insecurity: Theory and Experiment

摘要：Conspicuous consumption, the practice of purchasing goods to signal social status, is widespread. Luxury goods, a primary vehicle for such signaling, exhibit an intriguing yet underexplored pattern: during economic hardships, their prices may even rise, in stark contrast with most goods. This phenomenon raises an interesting question: Are consumers more willing to purchase such goods in a bad economic state than in a good one? Our theoretical analysis supports this possibility. Specifically, we introduce the Purchasing-to-Signal Game, which involves different consumer types defined by their financial insecurity. Consumers prefer to be perceived as financially secure, yet they can only signal their types through purchasing. In our framework, financial insecurity is defined as the risk of being unable to afford purchases, and it worsens as economic conditions turn bad. Building on our theoretical framework, we design a laboratory experiment to examine its impact on purchasing behavior by manipulating subjects' financial insecurity. We also explore the correlation between consumers' beliefs about others' behavior and their purchase decisions, providing a direct test of the core mechanism from our theoretical analysis.