Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.

People can exhibit their status by the consumption of particular goods or experiential purchases; this is known as "conspicuous consumption"; the practice is widespread and explains the market characteristics of a whole class of goods, Veblen goods, demand for which increase in tandem with...

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Autores principales:	Panos Louridas, Diomidis Spinellis
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/b1f58c2b12654e6eac97c630fdfbfb73
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:b1f58c2b12654e6eac97c630fdfbfb732021-12-02T20:08:43ZConspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0255970https://doaj.org/article/b1f58c2b12654e6eac97c630fdfbfb732021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255970https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203People can exhibit their status by the consumption of particular goods or experiential purchases; this is known as "conspicuous consumption"; the practice is widespread and explains the market characteristics of a whole class of goods, Veblen goods, demand for which increase in tandem with their price. The value of such positional goods lies in their distribution among the population-the rarer they are, the more desirable they become. At the same time, higher income, often associated with higher status, has been studied in its relation to unethical behavior. Here we present research that shows how a particular Veblen good, illicit behavior, and wealth, combine to produce the display of illegality as a status symbol. We gathered evidence at a large, country-level, scale of a particular form of consumption of an illictly acquired good for status purposes. We show that in Greece, a developed middle-income country, where authorities cannot issue custom vanity license plates, people acquire distinguishing plate numbers that act as vanity plate surrogates. We found that such license plates are more common in cars with bigger engines and in luxury brands, and are therefore associated with higher value vehicles. This cannot be explained under the lawful procedures for allocating license plates and must therefore be the result of illegal activities, such as graft. This suggests a pattern of "conspicuous corruption", where individuals break the law and use their gains as status symbols, knowing that the symbols hint at rule-breaking, as long as the unlawful practice cannot be incontestably established.Panos LouridasDiomidis SpinellisPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 9, p e0255970 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Panos Louridas Diomidis Spinellis Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.
description	People can exhibit their status by the consumption of particular goods or experiential purchases; this is known as "conspicuous consumption"; the practice is widespread and explains the market characteristics of a whole class of goods, Veblen goods, demand for which increase in tandem with their price. The value of such positional goods lies in their distribution among the population-the rarer they are, the more desirable they become. At the same time, higher income, often associated with higher status, has been studied in its relation to unethical behavior. Here we present research that shows how a particular Veblen good, illicit behavior, and wealth, combine to produce the display of illegality as a status symbol. We gathered evidence at a large, country-level, scale of a particular form of consumption of an illictly acquired good for status purposes. We show that in Greece, a developed middle-income country, where authorities cannot issue custom vanity license plates, people acquire distinguishing plate numbers that act as vanity plate surrogates. We found that such license plates are more common in cars with bigger engines and in luxury brands, and are therefore associated with higher value vehicles. This cannot be explained under the lawful procedures for allocating license plates and must therefore be the result of illegal activities, such as graft. This suggests a pattern of "conspicuous corruption", where individuals break the law and use their gains as status symbols, knowing that the symbols hint at rule-breaking, as long as the unlawful practice cannot be incontestably established.
format	article
author	Panos Louridas Diomidis Spinellis
author_facet	Panos Louridas Diomidis Spinellis
author_sort	Panos Louridas
title	Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.
title_short	Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.
title_full	Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.
title_fullStr	Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.
title_full_unstemmed	Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.
title_sort	conspicuous corruption: evidence at a country level.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/b1f58c2b12654e6eac97c630fdfbfb73
work_keys_str_mv	AT panoslouridas conspicuouscorruptionevidenceatacountrylevel AT diomidisspinellis conspicuouscorruptionevidenceatacountrylevel
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Conspicuous corruption: Evidence at a country level.

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