Economic Activity Radius And Family Average Consumption Tendency

Consumer research has always been the core issue of western economics.On the one hand,with investment-and export-led economic slowdown,the issue of consumption under "the new normal" has become increasingly important.However,the phenomenon of high savings and low consumption still exists in our country.There is a lack of perspective on the radius of household consumption activity in the existing literature on consumption research.On the other hand,the automobile industry has been developing rapidly over the past two decades.The number of private car ownership in the family has been rising.The sales of new energy vehicles in China remain in the leading position in the world,and the new hot spots bring the continuous release of consumption potential.Car has greatly expanded the radius of the family's economic activity,its complex relationship with family consumption is necessary in expanding domestic demand,auto industry policy and marketing strategy.The influence of private cars on the consumption is subtle.Cars,as family assets,large consumer durable goods and transport,may have a strong substitution effect on consumption in the short term.But in the long term,private car may also promote household consumption because motorists have expanded their consumption radius because of the convenience,traveling habits provided by the car.This paper chooses whether having a private car or not as a perspective and studies the consumption structure in China.The first chapter is the introduction,including background and significance,research content and methods and related concepts;The second chapter is literature review,which introduce the related theory of household consumption and car and how the car ownership influence household consumption;The third chapter describes and deals with the data used;The fourth chapter discusses the impact on household consumption had by cars through the empirical methods of OLS,IV,Panel analysis,DID and PSM-DID.At the same time,the effects of private cars on the consumption structure and the heterogeneity based on family characteristics were analyzed.Finally further studies the influence mechanisms of private cars on consumption were done;Furthermore,the fifth chapter is conclusion and policy suggestions based on the previous chapters.We find that having a private car increases the level of household consumption by 33.5 percentage points in 2013;36.5 percentage in 2011.After excluding the impact of endogenous factors,having a private car could still increase the level of household consumption by 40.64 percentage in 2013;40.68 percentage in 2011.This increase is mainly from the middle and high level consumption demand other than the basic living consumption such as food and clothing,which accounted for 57.22%of the total effect in 2013,and accounted for 53.47%of the total effect in 2011.It shows that car really plays a significant role in the change of family consumption structure.In terms of family characteristics,private cars have greater impact on the rural families in the eastern and western regions than the urban families,and have greater impact on the urban families in the central region.In addition,there is a positive effect on the consumption effect of the private car by the education level and job ownership,and the expected income will lead to the difference in consumption habits.The regression results of the fixed panel effect show that the long-term promotion effect of private cars on consumption is 45.4%,of which private cars bring about 6.2%of the family social interaction expenditure,and the short-term substitution effect was only 5.6%.Owners of private cars have developed traveling habit and expanded their own consumption radius.Private cars can effectively improve the convenience of consumption and train travel habits,thus expanding the household consumption radius,raising the tendency of family consumption,making household consumption structure more reasonable and meeting the needs of higher-level and diversified household consumption.So the government should actively carry out the guidance to stimulate consumer demand,promote China household consumption upgrade and realize the healthy development of economy.