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In the years following the publication of A Theory of Consumption (1923), Hazel Kyrk’s book became the flagship of the field that would later be known as the economics of consumption. It stimulated theoretical and empirical work on consumption. Some of the existing literature on Kyrk (e.g., Kiss & Beller, 2000; Le Tollec, 2020; Tadajewski, 2013) depicted her theory as the starting point of the economics of consumption. Nevertheless, how and why it emerged the way it did remain largely unexplored. This chapter examines Kyrk’s intellectual background, which, we argue, can be traced back to two main movements in the United States: the home economics and the institutionalist. Both movements conveyed specific endeavors as responses to the US material and social transformations that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, notably the perceived changing role of consumption and that of women in US society. On the one hand, Kyrk pursued first-generation home economists’ efforts to make sense of and put into action the shifting of women’s role from domestic producer to consumer. On the other hand, she reinterpreted Veblen’s (1899) account of consumption in order to reveal its operational value for a normative agenda focused on “wise” and “rational” consumption. This chapter studies how Kyrk carried on first-generation home economists’ progressive agenda and how she adapted Veblen’s fin-de-siècle critical account of consumption to the context of the household goods developed in 1900–1920. Our account of Kyrk’s intellectual roots offers a novel narrative to better understand the role of gender and epistemological questions in her theory.

This chapter discusses conceptual links among Hazel Kyrk’s A Theory of Consumption (1923), the overall work of Thorstein Veblen, and Wesley C. Mitchell’s essays on spending and money. The three authors are concerned with transformations in production, related changes in the organization of consumption, and the effects on people. The approach is based on reading of Kyrk’s book in light of an integrated view of Veblen’s overall work. This chapter explains how Mitchell’s essays on money and spending built on Veblen’s work and discusses their relevance for understanding Kyrk’s book as conceptually linked to institutional economics. This chapter delineates the following commonalities: conception of living humans and money as an institution; distinction between business and industrial concerns; connection between distribution, waste, and consumption; and Veblen’s “machine process” of standardization in production and its relation to consumption. This chapter brings more detail in the conceptual and theoretical discussion of Veblen’s influence on Kyrk’s book.

Hazel Kyrk’s contribution is the most advanced formulation of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon, an approach to the analysis of consumption that, originated from Veblen’s theory, was developed in the US in the early 20th century. This approach was part of a wider stream of empirical analyses of consumption expenditure that had begun more than a century earlier.

Along with elements that can be traced back to the neoclassical tradition, in Keynes’ analysis of consumption, we find original elements. The dependence of consumption expenditure on the level of income, which is essential for asserting the principle of effective demand, can also be found in a long tradition of empirical studies. In qualifying this relationship, Keynes uses theoretical elements echoing key insights of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon. There is no documentary evidence that Kyrk or the economics of the social relevance of consumption came to Keynes’ attention. It is possible, however, to develop reasonable speculative considerations to argue a link between Keynes’ elaboration and both the empirical literature on the determinants of consumption and the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon.

Hazel Kyrk’s recognised contributions include a shift in analytic focus from production to consumption, pioneering work to measure household production as part of family income, empirical studies of family behaviour, and contributions to policy. But her account of ‘wise’ consumption and its intersection with ‘high’ living standards is not well understood. The three aims of this chapter are to explain ‘wise’ consumption across Kyrk’s three major books, to consider its role in Kyrk’s empirical studies, and to explain why it fell into oblivion. Tackling what Wesley Mitchell described as the ‘most baffling of difficulties’, Kyrk explained what constitutes a family’s ‘good’ in a manner that was critical of mere emulation. Her 1923 book required that wise consumption include new and personal elements. Her 1929/1933 book detailed five qualitative criteria (balance between interests, full and varied experiences, originality, rational sources of satisfaction, and the use of scientific information). But her 1953 book weakened this normative language, reflecting Margaret Reid’s view that Kyrk’s account was too demanding. Although Kyrk felt wise consumption avoided paternalism, her peers disagreed (Hoyt, 1938/1945; Reid, 1938/1945). We close with some problems with Kyrk’s account and a brief consideration of its continuing relevance.

This paper aims to contribute to the project of recognising the contribution of female scholars to the development of marketing thought. The paper presents a biography of Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt, a home economist, who contributed to the shaping of contemporary ideas about consumption and the consumer.

Source material used includes the Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt Papers (1884‐2009) in the Iowa State University Archives. The collection contains a variety of materials, of which the most important for this paper were news clippings, personal diaries (1907‐1918), and published and unpublished manuscripts (1953, 1964, n.d.). Also important for this study were two sources published by Alison Comish Thorne, Elizabeth Hoyt's PhD student. These include Thorne's autobiography Leave the Dishes in the Sink and her entry on Elizabeth Hoyt in the Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists.

The paper documents Elizabeth Hoyt's development of marketing thought, focusing on her early work on the cost of living index and subsequent contributions to an expanded theory of consumption and consumer learning.

Elizabeth Hoyt is one of a group of female home economists who pioneered consumption economics in America in the 1920s and 1930s yet who have been neglected in published accounts. Notwithstanding a short biographical note in the Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Hoyt's life and work are not yet documented.

The purpose of this paper is to present a perspective on need that derives from a personalism which is grounded in Catholic social thought and runs counter to the individualism of mainstream economics, focusing on need in the context of three economic activities: consumption, work, and leisure.

Three strands of Christian personalism emerged in twentieth‐century Europe: in Paris, Munich, and Lublin. The author's comments derive from the Lublin strand.

Mainstream economics regards consumption as satisfying human material wants. Need is disregarded except when poverty is addressed. Personalist economics insists that there are needs of the human spirit which are addressed through consumption. Personalist economics views work as having two effects. First, by producing goods and services it provides income to purchase those goods and services. Second, it provides opportunities to associate with others in the workplace, and to apply creative talents and energies. Mainstream economics regards the first but not the second as within the domain of the discipline. Mainstream economics defines leisure negatively as time spent not working. Personalist economics sees it positively as an activity crucial to personal development.

The reader is asked to consider two questions. Will economic theory continue to be constructed on an economic agent who is represented by the passive and predictable homo economicus of mainstream economics that is based on the individualism of the seventeenth‐to‐eighteenth century enlightenment? Or, will it turn to the active and unpredictable acting person of personalist economics based on a personalism that emerged in the twentieth century?

Sustainable consumption is increasingly on the policy menu, and local organic food has been widely advocated as a practical tool to make changes to conventional production and consumption systems. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of community‐based initiatives at achieving sustainable consumption objectives.

A new multi‐criteria evaluation tool is developed, from New Economics theory, to assess the effectiveness of initiatives at achieving sustainable consumption. The key indicators are: localisation, reducing ecological footprints, community building, collective action and creating new socio‐economic institutions. This evaluation framework is applied to an organic producer cooperative in Norfolk, UK, using a mixed‐method approach comprising site visits, semi‐structured interviews and a customer survey.

The initiative was effective at achieving sustainable consumption in each of the dimensions of the appraisal tool, but nevertheless faced a number of barriers to achieving its potential.

Future research could examine the sustainability preferences of non‐consumers of local or organic food, to compare responses and assess the scope for scaling up initiatives like this.

Ways forward for community‐based sustainable consumption are discussed, together with policy recommendations. Community‐based initiatives such as the local organic food network examined here should be supported to offer a diversity of local action.

This paper presents the first empirical evaluation of a local organic food network as a tool for sustainable consumption. It makes a timely and original contribution on environmental governance and the role of new institutions which enable consumers to change their consumption patterns. It is of interest to academics, practitioners and policymakers concerned with sustainable development.

Until now, traditional western consumption theories have not been able to adequately explain the consumption behavior of Chinese residents in the economic transitional period. Based on annual data from 1986 to 2004, the purpose of this paper is to examine the excess sensitivity of consumption through a variable parameter model.

A regression model was used to analyse annual consumption data from 1986 to 2004 in China.

The analysis demonstrates excess sensitivity characteristic in Chinese residents' consumption in the economic transitional period.

The paper concludes that in order to make the demand stimulation policy in China more effective, it is necessary to take a series of measures to correct the excess sensitivity of consumption, so as to establish a healthy cycle of national economy. The paper has only explained excess sensitivity of Chinese residents' consumption from the point of view of economics. While consumption is an economic problem as well as a social problem, those factors beyond economics should not be excluded from the analysis.

This paper differs from former studies in that previous scholars failed to take into consideration the special economic characteristics in China's transitional economy. The variable parameter model this paper employed takes full consideration of such unique factors as economic expectations and systems changes during the transitional period so as to better explain Chinese people's consumption behavior and provide a new perspective to make government policies stimulate domestic demand more effectively.

This paper aims to explore how home economists, employed by the Good Housekeeping Institute, may have influenced the use of principles from the home economics movement in advertising appeals for electric appliances.

A content analysis of more than 400 print advertisements from Good Housekeeping magazine, from 1916 to 1929, was conducted to determine whether manufacturers used appeals derived from the home economics movement in their advertising. Then, the Good Housekeeping Institute’s history is explored to suggest how its relationship with manufacturers may have resulted in the use of the home economics movement’s principles in advertising appeals for electric appliances.

The content analysis shows that principles of the home economics movement appeared in advertising appeals for electric appliances in advertisements placed in Good Housekeeping magazine during the period studied. Through its unique relationships with electric appliance manufacturers, the Good Housekeeping Institute seems to have taught manufacturers how to position electric appliances by incorporating the principles of the home economics movement in their advertising appeals.

This research demonstrates how a commercial organization successfully navigated its relationships with manufacturers and consumers for mutual benefit.

This work is the first to link the Good Housekeeping Institute’s work with manufacturers to its influence on advertising appeals. This work also expands understanding of the influence of women on marketing practice. Existing literature on women’s publications is also broadened by analyzing Good Housekeeping, rather than the more frequently studied Ladies’ Home Journal.