  Signalling social status through the consumption of visible goods has often
been perceived as a way in which individuals seek to emulate or move up
compared to others within the community. Using representative migration survey
data from the Indian state of Kerala, this paper assesses the impact of
transnational migration on consumption of visible goods. We utilize the
plausibly exogenous variation in migration networks in the neighbourhood and
religious communities to account for the potential endogeneity. The findings
indicate a significantly positive and robust effect of migration on conspicuous
consumption, even after controlling for household income. In terms of the
mechanisms, while we are unable to rule out the associated taste-based changes
in preferences and the peer group effects driving up the spending on status
goods, we observe only limited effects of these channels. A potential channel
that we propose is information gap among permanent residents about the income
levels of an out-migrant, which is leveraged by them to signal higher status in
society. We explore this channel through a theoretical model where we connect
migration, information gap and status good consumption. We derive a set of
conditions to test whether migrants exhibit snobbish or conformist behaviour.
Empirical observations indicate predominance of a snobbish behaviour.
