TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Aldashev, Alisher
AU  - Danzer, Alexander M.
        TI  - Regulating Ceremonial Spending: Top-down or Bottom-up?
        PY  - 2026/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18585
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18585
        AB  - 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 households. We evaluate two distinct regulatory approaches through separate natural experiments: a top-down legal ban on lavish wedding celebrations in Tajikistan and a bottom-up, community-driven norm agreement in Kyrgyzstan- interventions with close analogues in Afghanistan, China, India, and Pakistan. Both yield reductions in ceremonial spending, with household savings larger under the bottom-up approach, but they operate through fundamentally different compliance mechanisms. The top-down reform hinges on external monitoring and credible sanctions, while the bottom-up intervention relies on social trust and norm internalization. These findings identify external enforcement and social trust as the key compliance mechanisms.
        KW  - ceremonial spending
KW  - conspicuous consumption
KW  - compliance
KW  - monitoring
KW  - trust
KW  - anti-poverty policy
        ER  -