[2] Countries and local governments may adopt laws and economic policies similar to those that appear to demonstrate success elsewhere.
[1] Some heterodox economists such as James Duesenberry and Robert H. Frank, following the original insights of Thorstein Veblen (1899),[4] have argued that awareness of the consumption habits of others tends to inspire emulation of these practices.
Duesenberry (1949) gave the name "demonstration effect" to this phenomenon,[5] arguing that it promoted unhappiness with current levels of consumption, which impacted savings rates and consequently opportunities for macroeconomic growth.
Similarly, Ragnar Nurkse (1953)[6] argued that the exposure of a society to new goods or ways of living creates unhappiness with what had previously been acceptable consumption practices; he dubbed it the "international demonstration effect."
He claimed that in developing nations, pressure to increase access to material goods rapidly increases, primarily because people "come into contact with superior goods or superior patterns of consumption, with new articles or new ways of meeting old wants."