家庭债务与居民消费质量——基于收入不平等的调节效应

Household Debts and the Quality of Consumption: Evidence from the Regulatory Effect of Income Inequality

基于中国追踪调查(CFPS)数据,文章实证检验了收入不平等对家庭债务影响居民消费的调节效应和对消费结构与消费质量的影响,以及在不同收入水平、不同财富水平和城乡居民家庭差异下,家庭负债对居民消费质量的影响。实证结果表明:家庭负债对居民消费具有显著正向影响,且家庭纯收入和家庭总资产对居民总支出均有显著正向影响,即强化了财富效应。由于居民消费质量会随时间改变,消费者只有满足基本物质生活需求后才会关注发展与享乐型消费,因此文章将生存型消费作为较低质量消费的衡量,将发展与享乐型消费作为较高质量消费的衡量,并进一步将居民消费质量与收入不平等联系起来。我们观察到家庭债务对发展与享乐型消费的促进作用显著大于对生存型消费的促进作用,并且收入不平等在家庭债务影响居民消费质量的过程中具有调节作用。在不同收入水平、不同财富水平和城乡居民家庭中,家庭债务对居民消费质量的影响也存在显著差异。研究结论有利于提高我国居民消费水平和消费质量,进一步实现金融促进消费质量的提高。

Using China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)dataset,this paper examines the regulatory effect of income inequality on the impact of household debts on the structure and quality of consumption.Also investigated in the study is the impact of household debts on the quality of consumption at different income levels,different wealth levels as well as household differences between urban and rural residents.The empirical results show that household debts have a significant positive impact on household consumption,and both household net income and household total assets have a significant positive impact on household total expenditure,which strengthens the wealth effect.Because the quality of resident consumption patterns changes over time,consumers will only pay attention to their development and hedonic consumption when their basic material needs are already met.Therefore,this paper takes survival consumption as the measurement for lower quality consumption,while development and hedonic consumptions are viewed as that for higher quality consumption.And the quality of the resident consumption is then further linked with income inequality.It has been observed that the promotional effect of household debts on the development and hedonic consumption is significantly greater than that on the survival consumption,and income inequality plays a moderating role in the process of household debts affecting the quality of consumption.Evidence shows that the increase of household debts can effectively promote the expenditure in areas of culture,education,entertainment and health care.Therefore,household debt promotes the upgrading of consumption structure and can effectively promote the improvement of household consumption quality.In the meantime,there are also significant differences found in the impact of household debts on consumption quality at different income levels and different wealth levels as well as between urban and rural households.The research of this paper should be beneficial to the improvement of the consumption level and consumer quality,and further assist the improvement of consumption quality promoted by finance.