Less is more: rarity trumps quality in luxury markets

Agnes Gault,Yves Meinard,Franck Courchamp

doi:10.1038/npre.2008.1690.1

Abstract

AbstractThe international market for luxury goods has almost doubled since 1990, with a worldwide increase of 10% annually. This trade is fuelled by a great deal of legally and illegally exploited wildlife species, putting enormous pressure on many of them, with potentially irreversible consequences. The dramatic decline of sturgeon populations exploited for their caviar, is a good example: all 27 species are threatened and the most coveted are on the verge of extinction. We aim to identify the mechanism responsible for the continued overexploitation of sturgeon species, despite caviar's ever-increasing price and the imminent loss of these species. Here, we demonstrate consumer preference for rarity over intrinsic quality: customers tasting two caviar samples more often chose the one they thought was rare, although both were identical. In a game theory model, we demonstrate that the most rational behaviour is to rush to consume rare species, even though this precipitates their extinction. We conclude that the human predisposition to place exaggerated value on rarity probably drives the entire market for luxury goods from reptile skins to exotic woods. Our findings suggest that allowing low levels of legal trade will exacerbate the arbitrary value of rare species and thereby stimulate demand. Only a total ban on trade from the wild (with very strict controls) combined with strong support for farmed equivalents will protect rare species.

Highlights

Caviar consumers’ attraction to rarity To try to identify the mechanism responsible for the overexploitation that is quickly driving the 200-million-year-old sturgeon fish to extinction, we first tested consumers’ predisposition to place a high value on rarity by investigating whether the perceived rarity of caviar was more important for consumers than its intrinsic gustative qualities
When presented with caviars from both a ‘rare’ species and a ‘common’ species, 57% of the consumers interviewed in luxury receptions in France explicitly expressed an a priori preference for the rare species caviar, even before they tasted either sample (Pearson Chi-square Homogeneity test: χ2 = 6.02, df = 1, p < 0.0001, n = 307)
The rare species caviar obtained higher grades than the common species caviar (Linear mixed-effect model; F = 0.164, df = 1, p = 0.69, n = 515; see the Methods section for details of the statistical analysis). Our findings with both novice and regular caviar consumers demonstrated an irrational preference for caviar they believed came from a rare species, both the rare and common samples came from the same can

Summary

Introduction

Caviar consumers’ attraction to rarity To try to identify the mechanism responsible for the overexploitation that is quickly driving the 200-million-year-old sturgeon fish to extinction, we first tested consumers’ predisposition to place a high value on rarity by investigating whether the perceived rarity of caviar was more important for consumers than its intrinsic gustative qualities. The rare species caviar obtained higher grades than the common species caviar (Linear mixed-effect model; F = 0.164, df = 1, p = 0.69, n = 515; see the Methods section for details of the statistical analysis) Our findings with both novice and regular caviar consumers demonstrated an irrational preference for caviar they believed came from a rare species, both the rare and common samples came from the same can. We established a model based on the principle of the prisoner’s dilemma game, to identify the most rational behaviour (i.e. consume or postpone consumption) of consumers attracted by a rare resource, such as caviar, in order to optimise their payoff (i.e. satisfaction) over time This game-theory model shows that the expected payoff of consuming later, for the sake of sustainable resource management, is always lower than the expected payoff of consuming whatever the choice of other consumers (Figure 3a and b). The human attraction for rarity fuels a disproportionate exploitation of the resource, rendering it increasingly rare and ever more desirable, until total depletion (Figure 4)

Objectives

Findings

Methods