Consumption Level And Structure Change Of Urban Residents And Its Influencing Factors

Consumption dramatically promotes macro-economy and is tightly related to family’s daily life. Nowadays the issues are becoming more severe in our country:low macro-consumption rate, slow residents’ consumption structure transition, and consumption fault. These problems not only impede macro-economy and industrial upgrading, but also discourage residents’consumption. It has become the focus of the society that how to change the slow consumption increase compared to the investment, how to enlarge the residents’ consumption, and how to optimize the consumption structure. It is important to study the consumption structure of urban residents in Jiangsu, since it is one of the most developed and high living standard provinces in China.This paper first reviews the urban residents’ consumption history in Jiangsu province since 1978 by analyzing large number of data and figures. We describe the consumption level from the macro and micro points of views respectively and compare different cities’ family’s average consumption tendencies and Engel coefficients based on different regions and income levels. When analyzing the consumption structures, we study the change of various consumption categories in the proportion of total consumption from the views of income level and regions, and try to explain the change based on the economic and social environment at that time.Next we use extended linear expenditure system (ELES) to quantitatively analyze various consumption data of urban residents in Jiangsu province and the effect of residents’ income on consumption expenditure. We compare the quantitative results in Jiangsu and the whole country to see their similar and different characteristics.Then we include the price factor and utilize almost ideal demand system (AIDS) to conduct a quantitative analysis. We make clear different consumption categories’ change of proportions in the consumption structure of urban residents in Jiangsu. Meanwhile this result is also compared to that of the whole country during the same period.We also compare the residents’ consumption expenditure data across different countries and areas. We propose to use consumption diversity index to measure the tendency that as the residents’ income increases, different categories of consumption go to average. Based on this argument, we compare the consumption structure in Jiangsu and our country with other counties.Finally, we draw conclusions on the change and influence factors of the urban residents’ consumption level and structure in Jiangsu after combining the qualitative and quantitative results and comparing the residents’ consumption situation in Jiangsu, China and other countries and areas.