Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ISSUES, cilt.58, sa.3, ss.776-792, 2024 (SSCI)
Overconsumption and overborrowing are prevailing problems in many countries
nowadays. The conspicuous consumption phenomenon, first asserted by Thorstein Veblen
in the late nineteenth century, can play an important role in explaining the current excess
consumption and may have a connection with the spread of credit cards. This study aims
to reveal the nexus between credit card use and conspicuous consumption expenditures
of households in Turkey where credit card debts are massive. For this purpose, a Tobit
model is carried out utilizing micro-level data from the Household Budget Survey for the
year 2019. Findings reveal that possession of credit cards is associated with a 25% increase
in conspicuous expenditures of households on average after controlling for household
income and demographic characteristics. Once households are grouped by income, credit
card use is associated with a higher level of conspicuous expenditures for households just
below the highest income group and households just above the lowest income group. This
finding implies that while the former group purchases more conspicuous products relying
on credit cards to look like the highest income group, the latter group probably does that
to distinguish themselves from the lowest income group.