| Consumption and saving problem has long been the hot problem ofthe studies. The precautionary saving theory, brings uncertainty into thestudy, analyzes consumers' inter-temporal choices behavior based on theidea of rational expectations, is an important expansion to the life circlehypothesis and the permanent income hypothesis. At present thehousehold saving rate and the absolute amount of savings are so high thatthe saving growth surpasses income growth, uncertainty increases as well.How prudent are consumers? Most of the studies show that there are largeprecautionary savings among Chinese people, but these conclusions aremade out of macro-data. Using micro-data of related family investigationfrom the year 2002 to 2004 in city of Zhejiang province, starting from theuncertainty, this paper analyzes the influence of family feature on theurban households' saving behavior by utilizing the panel data model.This paper first introduces the development of the precautionarysaving theory and its classic models, then tests the Dynan model using themicro-data from the point of consumption uncertainty and gets the fixed index of precautionary saving, which can be compared with other results.Starting from the inter-temporal utility maximization, it then derives thetheoretical model of optimal consumption, according to which, combinedwith the individual risk factors that affect the households' consumption,we get the econometric model of this paper and do the empirical analysis.Main conclusions are as follows:1. The results show that there are precautionary motives amongurban households.2. The family features strongly affect consumption. Not only thedemographic variables, but also the level of education and occupation ofthe head of the household will have influence on consumption decision.3. Different consumer groups may react differently to the individualrisk, so the risks they faced differ accordingly, especially to the age,education level and occupation variables. |
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