Urban And Rural Residents' Consumption Structure Change And Its Causes

Consumption structure affects macroeconomic in two ways:(1) when consumers decide the consumption structure, they also decide the ratio between consumption and saving; (2) consumption structure can affect the industrial structure, while the later one will influence macroeconomic. Thus, understanding and analyzing consumption structure is very important.Firstly, we have discussed the changing of consumption structure of Chinese residents since 1978 in three ways:(1) at first, we have discussed the stages consumption structure of Chinese urban and rural residents; (2) then, according to Engel coefficient and per capita GDP, we have defined four patterns of consumption, which are survival, subsistent, comfortable, and consuming pattern; (3) finally, some specific items of urban and rural residents'consumption have been discussed.Secondly, we have analyzed the influence of income and price to consumption structure by using ELES model. Due to the panel data of Chinese urban and rural residents, which present the consumption structure regionally, we can focus on the income and price factor by panel techniques. At first, we analyze the urban and rural data separately, and then we combine the two panels to find out the reasons for the urban-rural differences.Thirdly, we have conducted further analysis of the tow panels by AIDS model. Because AIDS model pays more attention on the consumption share rather than ELES model, we can get some in-depth understanding of China's consumption structure of urban and rural residents. Just as the analysis in ELES model, we firstly analyze the urban and rural data separately, and then we combine the two panels to focus on the difference between urban and rural residents.Then, the attention turns to the international comparison of consumption structure. Since the consumption proportion data can avoid the affection of exchange rates, the international comparison is feasible. Therefore, we have tried to find out some international experience of consumption structure upgrading and provide some guidelines for China.At last, we have summarized some conclusions from the above analyzing, and tried to give some suggestion for the upgrading of Chinese consumption structure and the eliminating differences between China urban and rural residents.