中国城镇居民的消费习惯形成效应

Habit Formation in Chinese Urban Household Consumption

内需不足、消费疲软是社会转型期困扰我国经济发展的重要难题。消费习惯形成理论认为,消费者的效用不但取决于当期消费还取决于习惯存量,消费决策逐步动态调整,从而导致消费行为更为谨慎。本文讨论了我国城镇居民家庭消费的习惯形成效应。我们首先扩展了Dynan(2000)的理论模型,在其基础上加入了不确定性因素,随后利用1992—2003年中国城镇居民收支调查数据构造组群面板数据,并使用系统广义矩方法得到估计结果。实证结果表明,中国城镇居民的食品消费存在显著的习惯形成效应,且习惯形成系数为0.04,这一系数在社会转型期逐步增强。研究还发现,不同组群的家庭表现为显著的异质性。本文的结论一方面可以为微观家庭的消费金融决策提供有益参考,另一方面为改善内需的宏观政策制定提供了经验证据。

Insufficient domestic demand arid weak consumption have become crucial problem that restraining the economic development of China in social transitional period. According to the theory of habit formation, the individuals＇ utility depends on both the present consumption and the habit stock remained from the past. As a process of dynamic adjustment, habit formation results in more cautious consumption behavior. This paper discussed the habit formation problem in Chinese urban household consumption. Firstly, we extended the model in Dynan （2000） by adding uncertainty variables. Then, this paper constructed a pseudo panel dataset from China＇s Urban Household Income and Expenditure Survey of 1992--2003, and used the system GMM analysis to test the presence of habit formation in consumption. The empirical results yield some evidence of habit formation in food consumption, and the basic habit formation coefficient is 0. 04. Meanwhile, habit formation effect increased during the society transformational periods. At last, we also found heterogeneity by different cohorts. Our work is suggestive both in micro household finance behavior, and in macro policy making against weak consumption.