The Anti-Corruption Campaign, Luxury Consumption, and Regime Trust in China: Changing Patterns of Perceived Political Risk and Their Consequences

Under China’s one-party system, luxury consumption is an act that might have political consequences. The authors propose a game-theoretical model and conduct an empirical study to explain why the Chinese luxury market actually expanded rapidly at the height of Xi’s anti-corruption and anti-extravagance campaign. The findings show that this outcome was an unintended consequence of changing patterns of perceived political risk in the context of the anti-corruption campaign. During the Hu-Wen period, a tougher local crackdown was a leading signal of a power struggle and was associated with growing distrust in politics, and therefore reduced luxury consumption. After Xi launched his anti-corruption campaign, a tougher local crackdown on corruption became a lagging signal of risk clearance and hence no longer suppressed luxury consumption.