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Consumer Behavior Of China's Urban Residents

Posted on:2012-04-22Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:D Y HaoFull Text:PDF
GTID:1119330368479985Subject:Quantitative Economics
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Consumer behavior has been a hot topic studied abroad in economics, including expenditure and consumption structure. Through the marginal propensity to consumption, the price elasticity and expenditure elasticity of goods, the paper can quantitatively analyze the factors of consumer behavior. Meanwhile, it has been widely recognized that consumer behavior is different because of individual characteristics of consumers, so distinction consumer behavior among different groups can make the formulation and implementation of policy more targeted. However, due to lack of micro data, the researches on consumption behavior are rare in domestic, and the results of consumer behavior of different groups are rarer.Theoretical researches of expenditure started from the 30's of the last century. Keynes (1936) proposed the Absolute Income Hypothesis which laid the foundation of theoretical researches, and Duesenberry (1949) proposed Relative Income Hypothesis which had differences with AIH. In order to explain and reconcile the contradiction between the two hypotheses, Modigliani and Brumberg (1954) and Friedman (1957) separately proposed the Life Cycle Hypothesis and the Permanent Income Hypothesis. With deeply study, the deterministic consumption theory was development and mature, then the scholars found that consumer spending behavior is also affected by many unpredictable factors, thus the uncertainty consumption theory put forward, including the random walk theory, liquidity constrained theory, precautionary saving theory and buffer stock theory. Theoretical study of the consumption structure was from the 50's of the last century; Engel's system, linear expenditure system and almost ideal demand system were gradually raised and constantly improved with the development of corresponding theoretical and empirical model. Consumer behavior theories have been tested by lots of empirical researches. For consumer spending, income is the most important factor, while the income effects are analyzed from current income, permanent income, temporary income and income uncertainty. According to LCH, consumers will make decision in longer period even the entire life cycle. Therefore, assets and age are also important factors. For the consumption structure, the total consumption expenditure and the prices of commodities are undoubtedly the most important factors. Empirical studies show that income and assets affect consumer spending, therefore, these two factors indirectly affect the consumption structure. At the same time, many scholars found the consumption structure was different for different age groups. Income, assets and age impact on consumer spending and consumption structure, so many experiences are about these three factors.Consumer behavior theories above were developed in condition of western market economy, which needed the adaptive test in a developing country like China. Meanwhile, it isn't helpful for the sustained and steady development of economic that China's economic development has always belonged to investment-led, national consumption will is not high, the consumption rate is too low and other issues, therefore, many researchers studied the consumer behavior. Due to the constraints of data, most studies of consumer behavior based on the macro level, but there are differences between the individual consumer behaviors, so distinction consumer behavior of different groups basing on micro data is necessary. This will not only be more accurately quantitative analysis of various factors, but also enable the government to develop and implement policies targeted. Based on the above analysis, the paper based on the survey data of consumption of urban residents, under the framework of consumer economic theory, established the consumption function and the consumer demand system model with family's heterogeneity, using the method of micro econometric to analyze the factors of consumer behavior of urban residents and different groups.Firstly, there is an analysis on the consumer behavior of urban residents in the whole. Based on the life cycle hypothesis, quantile regression methods was used to analyze the various factors affecting consumer spending, and it is given that the trend of these factors in the overall distribution of urban residents'consumption. The results show that with consumption levels rising, the marginal propensity to consumption of the family income show the inverted U-type trend, suggesting that the redistribution of income would not only help curb urban income gap continued to widen, but also be useful to expand domestic consumption demand. With the age of household head increasing, consumption expenditure decreased, especially for the low consumption group. Therefore, the government should increase low-income group's income, especially for old-low-income group. On the other hand, the paper made a model of controlling the heterogeneity of family. The results show that consumption expenditure, commodity prices, the age of household head and the household size affect expenditure of various commodities, and consumer spending and commodity prices are the two most important factors. According to the price elasticity and the expenditure elasticity, food, clothing and housing are the necessary, while household goods, health care, transportation and communication, and education and entertainment are luxury. When the household consumption expenditure simultaneously increases with commodity prices, the quantities of food and housing will increase, while the remaining categories will reduce, particularly clothing, household goods and transportation and communication. Therefore, the government should reduce the cost of commodity from the producer's to reduce the price of commodity, and control urban traffic public facilities and travel costs, and it is particularly important that the need to control the cost of living to avoid the most basic housing spending giving burden to residents.Secondly, the paper analyzed consumer behavior of different income groups. According to Engel's equation and heteroscedasticity testing, urban residents will be divided into four income groups. Then, on the one hand, the paper established consumption function, then adding uncertainty of income and family characteristics in the function. The results show that for low-income groups, the effect of income uncertainty is most obvious. Therefore, the government should focus on the stability of income, through the implementation of more jobs and strengthening re-employment training policy to solve the employment problem, which will be more effective promotion to consume. On the other hand, the paper established of demand system model analysis of different income groups, the impact of the consumption structure factors and extent of differences. The results show that with the increase in individual age, rising share of health care spending, education, entertainment declining share of spending. Therefore, the government should continue to improve the medical system, and actively develop education for middle-aged entertainment so that they can be healthy and happy to spend their twilight years. With the rise in household income, consumption of urban residents living expenses in addition elasticity and price elasticity of the rise, the other commodity consumption expenditure elasticity and price elasticity of the basic downward trend, indicating that income and price changes, greater impact on lower income families . Therefore, the government increased the income not only can help to curb urban income gap continued to widen, but also to effectively stimulate the consumption of urban residents. In contrast, urban residents preferred to the family and consumer goods and transportation and communication influenced by the price factor. Therefore, the government should, through lower taxes and subsidies to promote the enterprises to reduce production and operating costs to reduce commodity prices, and thus to promote the policy objectives of urban household consumption.Again, according to household net worth of assets urban residents will be divided into different groups, the establishment of the consumption function model comparison of different asset groups. The results show that asset accumulation is not an effective increase in household consumption, the government focused on enhancing the level of income to more effectively stimulate consumer demand. With the increase in family assets, the decline in income elasticity increased asset flexibility. Therefore, the government should protect the assets of groups with low family income, at the same time encourage people to use professional investment institutions to enter the financial market, and provide subsidies and housing subsidies to help low-asset households increased asset accumulation. Points were found in different asset classes, fixed assets (mainly housing assets) higher proportion of consumer spending and the impact of relatively large, the government must also be expected to guide the fixed assets value, otherwise may have a negative impact on consumer demand, while rising income levels to accelerate the accumulation of assets in order to improve the ability of residents, both assets to play the role of consumer spending for revenue but also the effective pull of consumer demand. On the other hand, the establishment of consumer demand system of the consumption structure different asset groups. The results show that household consumption expenditure, household head age and family members have an impact, with the rise in household assets, all kinds of goods gradually weakened the impact of consumer spending, suggesting that the high asset group for various types of consumer demand, a higher degree of satisfaction, of which, household goods and entertainment services, and education is for the expenditure elasticity of the various asset groups were higher, suggesting that consumer demand for these two types of commodities on household consumption expenditures are more sensitive response The government should ensure that the labor supply of family services, adjusting the structure of employment of local residents to ensure continuity of services to meet the assets of groups of urban household consumption expenditure growth with the increasing consumer demand.Finally, the paper established the age effect model, using semi-parametric regression to analyze household consumption. The results show that the age distribution of household income was inverted U-type, of total consumption expenditure was S-type, and of the savings rate was an inverted U-type. For the young and the middle, increasing of income meet consumption demand, but the old have higher savings capacity and savings motive, consumption and saving rate are fluctuations throughout the life cycle. Therefore, the government should develop the credit policy for youth groups to encourage them to consumption in advance; it can not only smooth lifetime earnings, but also avoid the family in late middle age and old age having a higher savings rate. The education helps to improve the level of income and consumption, and will not produce a high savings rate. At the same time, income, expenditure and savings rate are significantly different for geographical distribution. Therefore, the government should focus on education in backward areas, improve the education system, increase the educational facilities construction, and focus on improving the individual level of education, which can not only effectively improve the income of urban residents, but also promote regional consumption and spur regional economic growth, and will not cause a substantial increase in the savings rate. On the other hand, the paper established the consumer demand system to analyze the factors of consumption structure for different age groups. The results show that consumer behavior of the old is significant different from other groups, and the demand of medical care is the highest. As China entered the aging society, the government should pay more attention to consumer demand of the old, increase social security efforts, develop health care subsidies, and meet the basic needs for health care through providing the regular inspection or free medical services for the old to reduce the burden. The low-age groups are more concerned in education and entertainment than other groups. The government should focus on reducing the education burden of young families, regulating various forms of secondary education, and avoiding unreasonable cost of education.The experience obtained in the paper is helped for clearly understanding consumer behavior of different groups, identifying the impact of different factors for different groups, and it has a certain significance for concerning the needs of special groups, targeted developing and implementing public policies, stimulating consumption demand, improving the living welfare level of urban residents, guiding the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure in order to market demand.
Keywords/Search Tags:urban residents, consumer behavior, consumption expenditure, consumption structure
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