On the political side of luxury

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the influence of political ideology on the perception of luxury products of Portuguese consumers. A positive relationship between political conservatism and higher willingness to pay for luxury products was demonstrated via a statistical analysis, indicating that conservative-leaning consumers are more likely to pay a premium for luxury products than liberal-leaning consumers (in accordance with previous literature). Furthermore, this dissertation explores the influence of a review, by an opinion leader, on the willingness to pay for a product. On the one hand, the majority of the respondents did not change their willingness to pay on the product after reading the review; on the other hand, among those who changed, a greater part effectively recognized a higher value on the product after reading the review. Moreover, it is suggested that conservative-leaning consumers are more likely than liberals to value external approval (in this case, a review by an opinion leader on the field) on luxury products in order to buy them. This conclusion is consistent with previous works on the consuming patterns of these opposed political groups. In parallel, the qualitative opinion on the product was not influenced by the external review, with the participants keeping their original positions on the analyzed luxury products.

Date of Award	1 Mar 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Daniel Fernandes (Supervisor)