The Research On The Factors That Influence Northwestern Rural Residents' Consumption

As a developing country,China has been maintaining a steady economic growth and development since its reform and opening up.But its residents' consumption,considered to be one of the elements that help increase economy has been at a low level.Especially in the northwest in our country,rural residents' living conditions are not completely in pace with the social development process.Rural residents' consumption is significantly low.At the end of 2014,the rural population in the northwestern region reached 65.76 million,accounting for almost 66.4% of the total population in the northwest and 4.8% of China's whole population.However,their consumption accounts for only 1.82% of the total consumption of the whole country.There is a clear and serious imbalance in the scale of consumption compared to the size of its population.In this case,it's significant to study the factors which would affect the northwestern rural residents' consumption.It's helpful to improve the whole consumption level of northwestern rural residents,promote healthy economic development of the northwestern region and change the poor and backward situation in the northwest.According to the qualitative and quantitative analysisbetween2005 and 2014,the northwestern rural residents' living consumption level,on the whole,maintained an ascending trend year by year.In 2014,the rural residents' consumption level of this region reached 7335.2 yuan,which was 3.65 times as much as that of the year 2005.But the consumption is still at a low level compared to the situation of the country.We can see from the analysis of the consumption structure that the residents in Gansu Province spend more money on food and drinks.The residents prefer to invest more in vehicles in Qinghai.And medical treatment often costs a lot for the residents in Shaanxi Province.When it comes to propensity to consume,in all the other four provinces in the northwest of China(except Qinghai),all rural residents' propensity to consume is higher than the national average,which illustrates that they have a stronger desire for consumption here.By choosing rural residents' net income,child dependency ratio,elderly dependency ratio,health expense accounts and urbanization rates changeable elements and on the basis of qualitative analysis,the paper uses 2005-2014 data of 5 provinces in northwestern China to establish a panel data regression model for empirical analysis on the factors that have influence on rural residents' consumption.FGLS regression method is also applied to the analysis.The results show that among the five factors,the rural residents' net income affects the residents' consumption most significantly.What's more,net income of rural residents,the elderly dependency ratio and urbanization rate all have a positive correlation with the residents' consumption.Clearly,the child dependency ratio and the increase of medical expenses are negative to the improvement of rural residents' consumption level.Finally,by combining the analysis of the current situation of northwestern rural residents' consumption and the results of the empirical research,together with the aims of raising the northwestern rural residents' consumption level and improving their living conditions,we put forward the following policies to stimulate our country's northwestern rural residents' consumption.Firstly,build a long-acting mechanism of income growth to develop the potential of the northwestern rural residents in consumption.Secondly,complete our social security system in western areas so as to protect rural residents' consumption tendency.Thirdly,establish a stimulating consumption mechanism specially for the northwestern rural left-behind groups.Lastly,implement the neighboring urbanization strategy to make the northwestern urbanization rate go steadily and quickly.