Consumer Capital Formation in Fast-Advancing Societies

This paper develops the concept of Consumer Capital as a coordination resource emerging in fast-advancing societies where institutional structures evolve more slowly than markets and cultural expectations. Consumer capital consists of trust, identity alignment, symbolic legitimacy, and social signaling mechanisms that enable sustained market participation and entrepreneurial scaling in environments characterized by institutional asynchrony. The framework distinguishes consumer capital from existing constructs such as brand equity, social capital, and reputation by focusing on its dynamic formation and erosion under conditions of rapid market change. Originally disseminated as an SSRN Working Paper. SSRN abstract page:https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6270700