Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated
by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
Veblen Effect
A tendency to find a product desirable because it has a high price.
Every student of economics learns that the price and demand of commodities are inversely related, a relationship known as the law of demand. The law of demand predicts that given two equivalent products, a lower price will increase demand and a higher price will decrease demand. The Veblen effect is one exception to this law. The economist Thorstein Veblen observed that in some cases increasing price can, by itself, increase demand and decreasing price can, by itself, decrease demand. This effect is typically associated with luxury items and services such as art, jewelry, clothes, cars, fine wines, hotels, and luxury cruises. The cause, according to Veblen, regards ...
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