Veblen good: a standalone construct

Thorstein Veblen's 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class introduced the idea of conspicuous consumption, spending on visible goods whose purpose is to display wealth and social standing rather than to meet a practical need, and it is from this account that the Veblen good takes its name. The economist Harvey Leibenstein formalized the pattern in 1950, defining a Veblen good as one for which some buyers' willingness to pay increases as the price rises, because a high price is itself read as a mark of exclusivity and status. This reverses the usual demand relationship, in which a higher price lowers the quantity people are willing to buy, so over a range of prices the demand curve can slope upward. A Veblen good is distinguished by this dependence of desirability on a conspicuous, publicly visible price, which sets it apart from a Giffen good, where quantity demanded rises with price for reasons of income and necessity rather than display.[1][2]

Unit

A category of good defined by demand that rises with price through the status signaled by that price

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified in demand studies and experiments where higher posted prices raise stated or observed willingness to buy while the product is held constant, typically for luxury or positional goods