城镇居民消费的“习惯形成”效应

Habit Formation Effect in Consumption of Urban Households

本文利用"中国营养与健康调查"数据对中国城镇居民消费中的"习惯形成"效应进行了研究。本文以家庭的食品消费微观数据作为非耐用品消费的代理变量,并运用动态面板系统广义矩估计方法来解决模型的内生性问题。本文研究发现,"习惯形成"可以从一定程度上解释近年来中国城镇居民消费不振及高储蓄的现象,这一效应即使在考虑了城镇家庭的"预防性储蓄动机"之后仍然是稳健的,并且其对消费的边际影响比"预防性动机"更为重要。不仅如此,本文还发现家庭越富有,习惯形成越强,储蓄倾向越高。

This paper tests for the presence of habit formation using urban household data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey.By conducting the system GMM estimations,we find strong evidence of habit formation on nondurables consumption and total consumption.The habit formation effect is important in explaining the high saving rates of urban households in China.This finding is robust even if we consider the precautionary saving motivation of urban household.Moreover,the marginal effect of habit formation on consumption is much larger than that of precautionary motivation.We also find that household wealth is positively related to the strength of habit formation effect.