| Consumption is the terminal and new starting point for social reproduction, and the insufficiency in consumer demand would seriously hamper the stable development of China’s economy. Since the reform and opening up, Shanxi has a rapid and stable economic development in, and the increased economic level has led to the income and consumption level of urban residents for a continuous increase. However, since the1990 s, the average consumption propensity and citizens’ consumption rate of urban residents in Shanxi Province have continued to decline, causing insufficient consumption demand and serious low consumption, which has severely restricted the rapid economic development in Shanxi Province. Therefore, the research on the consumption for urban residents in Shanxi Province would have great significance to promote economic development, adjust the relationship between investment and consumption, increase people’s consumption capacity, improve residents’ consuming environment, and enhance the stimulating effect on economic growth by consumption.Firstly, this paper makes a brief review on the development of excessive consumption sensitivity theory, then analyzes the consumption status quo of the urban residents in Shanxi Province and the status quo of different income groups, discovers the existing issue of excessive consumption sensitivity of the urban residents in Shanxi Province, and explains the reasons in three aspects for the excessive consumption sensitivity of the urban residents in Shanxi Province. Secondly, this paper makes empirical study of the consumption sensitivity of the urban residents in Shanxi Province,on one hand, apply the variable state space model to test the consumption sensitivity of the urban residents in Shanxi Province, to find the excessive consumption sensitivity of the urban residents in Shanxi Province; on the other hand, apply panel data model to make empirical study of the excessive consumption sensitivity of the urban residents from different income groups in Shanxi Province, and find the differences in the excessive consumption sensitivity from various income groups. Meanwhile, to further study the impacting factors for the excessive consumption sensitivity of the urban residents in Shanxi Province, this paper adds uncertainty variables to the original theoretical model for in-depth study. Finally, this paper proposes the policy recommendation to reduce the excessive consumption sensitivity of the urban residents in Shanxi Province.The following conclusions are obtained through empirical research:(1) urban residents in Shanxi Province has excessive consumption sensitivity, with the excessive consumption sensitivity coefficient significantly above zero, and from 1985 to 2014, the overall trend of excessive consumption sensitivity coefficient is downward, and met considerable fluctuation in the 1990s;(2) different income groups have different degrees of excessive consumption sensitivity, among which the low-income group has the highest excessive consumption sensitivity and the high-income group has the lowest excessive consumption sensitivity. The main reason for this discrepancy is the income gap, and the lower the income level is, the higher the excessive consumption sensitivity will be.(3) With the introduction of uncertain factors, the excessive consumption sensitivity coefficients for urban residents of different income groups are all decreased,among which the low-income group has the highest range of decrease and the high-income group has the lowest range of decrease. The main reason is that the high-income group has more wealth accumulation, enabling them to have smaller impacts for its future consumer spending. In contrast, the low-income group has greater risk of consumer spending, thus to have smaller impacts for the future consumer spending of the low-income group. |
