Contrefaçon et ostentation

In the last ten years, counterfeiting has drastically increased. It is generally argued that counterfeiting is economically harmful for both consumers and legal producers. The present paper aims at explaining in which circumstances counterfeiting is not that injurious from an economic perspective. In the case of luxury goods, that are attractive for counterfeiters, counterfeiting is a way to overcome the legal producer?s incapacity to satisfy the whole demand for budget constraints reasons. As long as counterfeit goods do not mislead consumers and legal producers are not able to supply lower quality goods, counterfeiting appears to improve efficiency.