We show theoretically that when high-quality, low-price counterfeits exist and are visibly indistinguishable from authentic products, the status-seeking wealthy may embrace a “less is more” purchasing strategy or what we refer to as the minimalist luxury strategy, to signal their status. These are the wealthy who have a high disutility of shopping for counterfeits. Specifically, in our model, only buyers know the authenticity of their own purchases. Because of this information asymmetry, these wealthy buyers may purposefully restrain from consuming luxury goods as a sacrifice of functional utility to stand out, a signaling strategy that the rest are not willing to mimic. Thus, “less” functional utility allows those status-seeking wealthy to enjoy “more” symbolic utility that the society bestows on their perceived status. This minimalist luxury strategy is in sharp contrast to Veblen's conspicuous consumption strategy, as well as to the maximalist luxury strategy proposed by Liu et al. We derive this minimalist luxury equilibrium, discuss how signaling in our context can differ from that of Veblen and Liu et al., and explore its managerial implications for the luxury goods industry.

中文翻译：

---

少即是多：极简奢华理论

我们从理论上证明，当存在高质量、低价的假冒产品并且与正品明显无法区分时，追求地位的富人可能会采取“少即是多”的购买策略，或者我们所说的极简主义奢侈品策略，以发出信号他们的地位。这些富人非常不愿意购买假货。具体来说，在我们的模型中，只有买家知道自己购买的商品的真实性。由于这种信息不对称，这些富有的买家可能会故意限制消费奢侈​​品，以牺牲实用性来脱颖而出，这是其他人不愿意效仿的信号策略。因此，“较少”的功能性效用使得那些寻求地位的富人能够享受社会赋予他们的感知地位的“更多”的象征性效用。这种极简奢华策略与凡勃伦的炫耀性消费策略以及刘等人提出的极简奢华策略形成鲜明对比。我们得出了这种极简主义奢侈品平衡，讨论了我们背景下的信号与维勃伦和刘等人的信号有何不同，并探讨了它对奢侈品行业的管理影响。