Luxury Fever: Weighing the Cost of Excess

"Luxury Fever is an important book. . . . It's admirable that an economist makes use of the research of behavioral biologists and evolutionary psychologists to explain why consumers spend as they do." (USA Today) "The shop-till-you-drop, 'retail therapy' culture may have become more dominant in the last few years. . . . But are we really any happier for it? One person who thinks we are not is Robert Frank . . . whose new book, Luxury Fever, has been causing a bit of a stir. . . . The burst of consumerism in the U.S. . . . gives a new bite to these well-rehearsed concerns." (The Independent (London)) "Frank's analysis should be just as interesting to those who do not share his political position as to those who do." (Samuel Brittan, Times Literary Supplement)