A Study On The Change Of The Urban Residents' Consumption Demand In Guangdong Province

The change of the residents' consumption demand has always been an importantresearch topic for economists. Because the raise in consumption and consumptionstructure optimizing reflect the raise in living quality of consumers on one hand,and develop the economy and force the change in the economical structure on theother hand. After the revolution came into being, due to the rapid economydevelopment of Guangdong province the urban residents' living quality has beenimproving for the long term. But in recent years, the consumption demand was notso enough and the economical structure showed unreasonable phenomenon. It wasnecessary to carry out an in depth research and investigation in relations toconsumption level, the structure of consumption, the developing regulations ofconsumption and the consumption ability of the urban people in Guangdong province,and then put forward the policies.This research follows the research methods of the normative analysis and positiveanalysis, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, static analysis and activeanalysis. By gathering the consumers' expenditure information of the urban residentin Guangdong from 1978 to 2005, the research is focused on the change of theconsumption demand, the problem of residents' consumption, the factors influencingthe residents' consumption, and the policies.This paper is divided into five chapters: Chapter One expounds the researchbackground and the meaning of this paper, and recommends the related research inmainland and overseas. Chapter Two will give a brief outlook on the consumptionlevel of urban residents in Guangdong first: absolute consumption level, a comparisonbetween consumption and income, a comparison between consumption and economygrowth. The conclusion is the level of residents' consumption is improving sorapidly, but it is a little lag compared with development of income and economy. Thischapter also analyzes the change of consumption structure. The conclusion is thatafter the revolution came into being there has been moderate changes in the structureof consumption, but the consumption has already entered into the developing andenjoyment stages for a long time. Chapter Three is the main point of the research, the ELES model will be used to analyze the structure of residents' consumption,which analyze the marginal propensity consume, the basic necessities, the static andactive income elasticity of demand, the price elasticity of demand, the cross priceelasticity of demand of different consumption items. According to the result, manyproblems will be analyzed, which include the potential hot point of consumption, thechanging trend of consumption structure, the importance of different consumptionitems' price and problems concerning the living conditions of poverty residents.Chapter Four is also the main point of the research. This chapter has analyzed thefactors which influence the consumption level and consumption structure; incomefactors and non-income factors. Income factor includes the current income, passedincome, permanence income, temporary income and the income gap of residents. Thenon-income factors include the interest rate, the uncertainty anticipation, the priceanticipation and the environment of consumption. The conclusions include: the effectof current income and permanence income are deeper than those of passed incomeand temporary income, the effect of the uncertainty of expenditure is deeper than thatof the uncertainty of income, the enlarging of income gap has the negative effect forthe consumption to some extend, the interest rate and price anticipation just havelittle effect. Based on the findings from Chapter Two to Chapter, especially severalmodels in Chapter Four, Chapter Five puts forward the policies of how to improvethe consumption and how to optimize the consumption structure. The suggestionsinclude: raising the level of income, adjusting the income policies to reduce theincome gap, cultivate the consumption hot point, perfecting the social securitysystem and promoting the consumption credit.