If you want to stop people from going broke over massive weddings and funerals, a simple neighborhood handshake works better than passing a law.
April 10, 2026
Original Paper
Regulating Ceremonial Spending: Top-down or bottom-up?
SSRN · 6549857
The Takeaway
Many countries try to ban wasteful ceremonial spending from the top down. This research shows that when neighbors collectively agree to lower their costs, they save significantly more money than when the government tells them what to do.
From the abstract
Ceremonies are central to social life, yet the pressure to conform to community spending norms traps households in a collectively suboptimal equilibrium, imposing severe financial burdens. Using nationally and regionally representative longitudinal data from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, we document that ceremonial expenditures are sizeable, display striking income inelasticities, and are strongly shaped by local spending norms, making celebrations disproportionately burdensome for poorer household