This paper deals with the analysis on adventitious utility—that contains many aspects that are connected to the contemporary debate on positional goods—of the early twentieth century American economist, largely forgotten today, George Pendleton Watkins. According to the author, adventitious...

People consume because others consume, maintained Veblen in 1899. More recently, theoretical, empirical and experimental articles have argued that people constantly compare themselves to their environments and care greatly about their relative positions.Given that competition for positions may...