Institutional Economic Analysis Of Chinese Family Economic Behavior

This paper is divided into seven chapters:Chapter 1- IntroductionOn the premise of illustrating the significance, academic value and application value of the selected subject, this paper sums up the related theoretical results emphatically, combs, summarizes, evaluates and analyzes domestic and foreign views related to research results and makes a prospective thinking. In the research process, we find that the problems about family, family economy and family economic behavior have always been a field ignored by mainstream economics, even though these problems are involved, they are only treated as a category of"consumer", i.e. family is restricted to consumption unit and other kinds of behaviors of family economy, such as economic activities in investment, production, income, expenditure, distribution and exchange, etc, are not involved basically. As a matter of fact, family is an important microeconomic unit with very powerful comprehensive economic functions and family economic behavior is the original economic behavior as well as the foundation stone supporting and maintaining all other economic activities, so it is a subject which must be studied deeply. On the basis of this understanding, this paper makes a prospective or innovative thinking of some views of economists and scholars respectively to use the theories of institutional economics to study family economic behavior from institutional aspect, thereby improving its operation efficiency.Chapter 2-Analysis of human behaviorHuman behavior embodies human attributes and traits. It is the basic state of human existence and development as well as the most active factor in the dynamic change of human society. Only studying family economic behaviors from the most basic human behaviors can the foundation be tamped, thereby getting an essential and true understanding of family economic behaviors, otherwise the study has neither a foundation nor persuasiveness. This paper studies human behavior and investigates its connotation and motivation first. It grasps three main factors, namely "human factor", "natural environmental factor" and "institutional factor" and gathers the three factors together to illuminate, thereby giving a concept of human behavior, i.e. human behavior refers to cognition, attitude, reaction, practice and selection produced by people for the changes of things and way of establishing human interaction. It is built on natural environmental basis and in institutional factor function. The study of human behavior motivation mainly expounds problems from two aspects, namely endogenous motivation and exogenous motivation. The so-called endogenous motivation includes human genetic behavior motivation and human subjective choice behavior motivation. The so-called exogenous motivation includes behavior orientations caused by natural environment and social environment. On this basis, a basic frame model of human behavior motivation is built. Next, it studies human behavior characteristics. It puts forward four characteristics of human behavior, namely goal, humanism, extensibility and sociality. Finally, it treats of disputed rational problems among economists. It thinks that the production of rational behavior has its objective necessity and subjective initiative, human reason differs in "rationality" and different views proposed by economists, such as "perfect rationality", "bounded rationality" and "irrationality", etc, don't differ in principle but in "rationality degree". It can be seen through further analysis that the so-called "perfect rationality", "bounded rationality" and "irrationality" are all formed in human brain frame or system, that is to say, they don't run out of human brain at all and different rationality degrees will be produced due to different demands and understandings of information.Chapter 3-Human behavior and institutionOn the basis of the above deep analysis of human behavior, institutional factor is brought into this paper to illustrate the relations between human behavior and institution. First, it is found that almost all definitions of institution contain a keyword-"behavior" in the theoretical analysis of "institution", which shows human behavior is the root of institution generation. Hereby, this paper puts forward three meanings to understand the connotation of institution: the first meaning is that institutions don't have behavior rules without human behaviors; the second meaning is that institutions serve people's behaviors; the third meaning is that institutions normalize human behaviors and have purposiveness and target principle. On this basis, this paper discusses institutional type and change, etc; and then, it expounds human behavior shaping institution and puts forward three kinds of shaping, namely shaping of human "instinctive behavior" for institution, shaping of human "spontaneous behavior" for institution and shaping of human "mandatory behavior" for institution. Finally, it studies the orientation and innovation of institution for human behavior, including regulation of institution for behavior, restraint and incentive of institution for behavior and expansion and innovation of institution for behavior, etc.Chapter 4-Family and family economic behaviorSeen from the angle of economics, the family is the microeconomic unit of society as well as the basic element determining macroeconomic activities, so it has a very important effect on the development of the society. There are many different views about family generation in theoretical circles, especially different conclusions of family generation in different subjects from different angles, such as anthropological angle, archaeological angle, historical angle, sociological angle and economic angle, etc. Revolving around the problem why the family is generated, this paper summarizes and illustrates the connotation of family on this basis. Firstly, the family is generated from the combination of marriage relation between the two sexes. Secondly, the family is generated from the economic relation of combination of the two sexes. Thirdly, the family is generated from the institutional arrangement of combination of the two sexes. Finally, the family is the product of history. On the basis of the above understanding of family generation, this paper summarizes the basic connotation of family as follows: the family is the product after human society developed to a certain stage as well as a social micro-unit of human life, it is based on sexual relations and blood relationship and subject to economic relations and institutional rules of material resources. On this basis, this paper studies family economic behavior and thinks family economic behavior mainly includes economic behavior in family marriage, economic behavior in family childbearing, general family economic behavior and economic behavior in family management, etc.Chapter 5-Family economic institution and family economic behaviorFirstly, this paper investigates the connotation and characteristics of family economic institution, puts forward the brand-new category of"family economic institution"and investigates the formation mechanism of family economic institution, i.e. it illustrates the necessity of family economic institution generation and its formation mechanism from interests and responsibilities, rights and obligations and guarantee and development of family economic behavior, etc; secondly, it builds the frame system of family economic institution, including family property right institution, family contract institution and family financing institution, etc; finally, it connects family economic institution with social economic institution to investigate and emphasizes the position and role of family economic institution in the whole social economic institution and the relations between family economic institution and social economic institution.Chapter 6-Change of Chinese economic institution and selection of family economic behaviorThis paper mainly expounds that the selection of family economic behavior is influenced by not only family economic institution but also the change of social institution. Both Chinese family economic institution arrangement and family economic behavior selection are basically embodied in the change of social economic institution. For example, under the planned economic system, family functions haven't been given full play to, let alone the functions of family economic institution, family economic behavior is completely based on a highly centralized equal distribution institution, almost every family lives on a relatively low level line and only a great gap between rural family economic behavior and urban family economic behavior exists. On the basis of the above theoretical results, this paper uses the theory of institutional change to investigate Chinese rural and urban family economic behaviors respectively along the track of Chinese economic system reform. It mainly interprets Chinese family economic behavior from institutional level and tries to make a prospective study.Chapter 7-Conclusions and problems to be studiedFive conclusions: conclusion 1, the institution is an important factor of human behavior as well as a solid foundation of studying family economic behavior; conclusion 2, the differences among human behaviors are caused by different rationality degrees and different families have different rationality degrees of behavior; conclusion 3, only the shaping relationship between human behavior and institution is grasped can the family economic behavior efficiency be improved; conclusion 4, the guarantee of the increase of Chinese family economic behavior efficiency is family economic institution; conclusion 5, the development of Chinese urban and rural family economic behaviors needs the assorted support of other related institutions. Three problems to be studied: problem 1, the analysis of quantitative factors in family economic behavior analysis needs strengthening; problem 2, the problem of rationality degree in family economic behavior needs further study; problem 3, the research on transaction cost problem in family economic behavior needs further expansion.