growth, which means that consumption along the high-savings trajectory will eventually exceed what it would have been had we remained on the low-savings trajectory. From that point forward, there would be more expenditure on innovation in both the consumption and capital goods sectors... Definitions One early instance of positional economy comes from San Gimignano – a Tuscan medieval town that has been described as the Manhattan of the Middle Ages because of its towers (in the past there were about eighty towers). Towers were not built by aristocratic families to live in them, but to "demonstrate" to community, their power, affluence and status of each family. In this case, the owner of a tower consumed a positive level of positional good, like power, instead the family which did not own a tower or owned a lower building consumed a negative level of positional good, that is, it consumed the exposure stemming from the power of the owner. For this reason, there is a zero-sum game in the family consumptions. There is a party consuming a positive amount of positional good and at the same time there is a counterparty consuming a negative amount of such a good. The aristocratic family – owners of a tower – enjoyed the positive consumption of the positional good, namely it had a positive utility deriving from the positional good. On the contrary, the family – non-owners of a tower – suffered from the negative consumption of the positional good (the consumption of exposure to power of others), namely it had a negative utility. For this reason, there is a zero-sum game in the family utilities. Towers were not built stuck to each other; it would have reduced the construction costs because a part of walls would be shared. Instead, among towers there is a gap, but this gap is not large enough for a person to pass through; it is the size of a brick. The reason of this gap and its size is to keep costs of construction high, and to deny the positive consumption of a positional good to families which were not rich enough to build the entire edifice. For this reason, positional good is related to a higher pricing. The case of San Gimignano's towers explains three meanings of positional good, each one resting on the idea of social scarcity: 1) the first one based on a zero-sum game in