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Household Consumption (household + consumption)
Selected AbstractsTHE EFFECT OF INDIVIDUAL RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS ON HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION AND NATIONAL SAVING*THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 481 2002Orazio P. Attanasio A major debate exists on whether expanding tax-favoured savings accounts such as Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) will increase national savings. Much of the empirical debate has centred on whether IRA contributions before the Tax Reform Act of 1986 represented new savings or merely reshuffled assets. We find no evidence that households financed their IRA contributions from reductions in consumption, at least initially. We find evidence that households financed their IRA contributions from existing savings or from saving that would have been done anyway. Our results indicate that, at most, 9% of IRA contributions represented net additions to national saving. [source] ECONOMIES OF SCALE IN HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION: WITH APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA,AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 2 2005NANAK KAKWANI This paper presents a general framework for defining the economies of scale in household consumption. It allows commodity specific economies of scale (taking into account the substitution effects). The chief contribution of the paper is to show how one can estimate economies of scale from cross section budget data without price information. The problem of identification that is inherent in these models is overcome by making use of some assumptions about the nature of goods and services employed in the estimation. The methodology developed in the paper is applied to Australian Household Expenditure Survey for 1984 to calculate item wise and overall economies of scale. [source] Cigarettes and social differentiation in France: is tobacco use increasingly concentrated among the poor?ADDICTION, Issue 10 2009Patrick Peretti-Watel ABSTRACT Aims This paper aimed to assess whether the increase of social differentiation of smoking is observed in France. Design and setting Five cross-sectional telephone surveys conducted in France between 2000 and 2007. Participants The surveys were conducted among national representative samples of French subjects aged 18,75 years (n = 12 256, n = 2906, n = 27 499, n = 2887, n = 6007 in 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively). We focused on three groups: executives, manual workers and the unemployed. Measurements Time trends of smoking prevalence were assessed, and socio-economic factors (especially occupation and job status) associated with smoking were identified and compared in 2000 and 2005. We also computed respondents' equivalized household consumption (EHI) and their cigarette budget to assess the financial burden of smoking. Findings Between 2000 and 2007, smoking prevalence decreased by 22% among executive managers and professionals and by 11% among manual workers, and did not decrease among the unemployed. Indicators of an underprivileged social situation were associated more markedly with smoking in 2005 than in 2000. In addition, the falling-off of smoking initiation occurred later and was less marked among manual workers than it was among executive managers and professionals. Finally, in 2005 15% of French smokers devoted at least 20% of their EHI to the purchase of cigarettes, versus only 5% in 2000, and smoking weighted increasingly heavily on the poorest smokers' budgets. Conclusions While these results point out an increased social differentiation in tobacco use, they underline the need to design and implement other forms of action to encourage people to quit, in particular targeting individuals belonging to underprivileged groups. [source] The Transmission of US Monetary Policy to the Euro Area,INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 1 2010Stefano Neri This paper studies how changes in the federal funds rate by the US Federal Reserve affect the eurozone economy. In our analysis, the international transmission mechanism works through movements in the exchange rate, commodity prices, short-term interest rates and the trade balance. We find that an increase in the federal funds rate causes the euro to immediately depreciate, while commodity, and in particular oil, prices decline sharply, reflecting a decline in demand. Lower commodity prices stimulate household consumption in the short run, and the higher aggregate demand induces an expansion of eurozone economic activity. Our results show that the effects of changes in the federal funds rate on commodity prices are greater than previously found in the literature. Our analysis also assesses the likely effects on the eurozone economy of the European Central Bank's (ECB's) own responses to macroeconomic developments. We find that the expansionary effect of lower commodity prices and a depreciated euro on the eurozone economy is partially offset by the ECB increasing short-term nominal interest rates to curb inflationary pressures in an expanding economy. This result highlights the importance of commodity prices and the euro,dollar exchange rate as inputs into European monetary policy-making, as seen, for example, in the Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections used by the Governing Council to assess the risks to price stability. [source] Poverty and deprivation among children in Eastern Europe and Central AsiaINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 3 2009Leonardo Menchini Although there is now a large body of literature on poverty in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, there remains a dearth of comparative analysis of child poverty and wellbeing. This article uses household survey microdata for the period 2001,2003 to compare absolute poverty, relative poverty, material deprivation and participation in schooling among children in five countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Russia and Tajikistan. The analysis shows that low absolute levels of household consumption are associated with other deprivation indicators and with children's participation in schooling. The article also highlights the usefulness of relative poverty measures that effectively identify children at risk of exclusion in even the poorest countries in the region. The article concludes by arguing that household consumption is a good indicator of child poverty and deprivation in the region, and that relative poverty measures should be more widely used in monitoring global targets for poverty reduction. [source] The Use of Remittance Income in MexicoINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2007Jim Airola Immigration affects sending countries through the receipt of remittance income. The impact of these cash transfers on households and communities has brought attention to remittances as a development mechanism. This study attempts to understand the degree to which household consumption is affected by the receipt of remittance income and the ways in which the broader communities may be impacted. Using household income and expenditure data for Mexico, expenditure patterns of remittance-receiving households are analyzed. Regression analysis indicates that remittance-receiving households spend a greater share of total income on durable goods, healthcare, and housing. [source] Lithuania's food demand during economic transitionAGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2000Ferdaus Hossain Abstract The linear approximate version of the almost ideal demand system (LA-AIDS) model is estimated using data from the Lithuanian household budget survey (HBS) covering the period from July 1992 to December 1994. Price and real expenditure elasticities for 12 food groups were estimated based on the estimated coefficients of the model. Very little or nothing is known about the demand parameters of Lithuania and other former socialist countries, so the results are of intrinsic interest. Estimated expenditure elasticities were positive and statistically significant for all food groups, while all own-price elasticities were negative and statistically significant, except for that of eggs which was insignificant. Results suggest that Lithuanian household consumption did respond to price and real income changes during their transition to a market-oriented economy. [source] Environmental Impacts of Consumption in the European Union:High-Resolution Input-Output Tables with Detailed Environmental ExtensionsJOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2006Gjalt Huppes Summary For developing product policy, insight into the environmental effects of products is required. But available life-cycle assessment studies (LCAs) are hardly comparable between different products and do not cover total consumption. Input-output analysis with environmental extensions (EEIOA) of full consumption is not available for the European Union. Available country studies have a low sector resolution and a limited number of environmental extensions. This study fills the gap between detailed LCA and low-resolution EEIOA, specifying the environmental effects of household consumption in the European Union, discerning nearly 500 sectors, while specifying a large number of environmental extensions. Added to the production sectors are a number of consumption activities with direct emissions, such as automobile driving, cooking and heating, and a number of postconsumer waste management sectors. The data for Europe have been constructed by using the sparse available and coarse economic and environmental data on European countries and adding technological detail mainly based on data from the United States. A small number of products score high on environmental impact per Euro and also have a substantial share of overall consumer expenditure. Several meat and dairy products, household heating, and car driving thus have a large share of the total environmental impact. Due to their sales volume, however, products with a medium or low environmental score per Euro may also have a substantial impact. This is the case with bars and restaurants, clothing, residential construction, and even a service such as telecommunications. The limitations in real European data made heroic assumptions necessary to operationalize the model. One conclusion, therefore, is that provision of data in Europe urgently needs to be improved, at least to the level of sector detail currently available for the United States and Japan. [source] ECONOMIES OF SCALE IN HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION: WITH APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA,AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 2 2005NANAK KAKWANI This paper presents a general framework for defining the economies of scale in household consumption. It allows commodity specific economies of scale (taking into account the substitution effects). The chief contribution of the paper is to show how one can estimate economies of scale from cross section budget data without price information. The problem of identification that is inherent in these models is overcome by making use of some assumptions about the nature of goods and services employed in the estimation. The methodology developed in the paper is applied to Australian Household Expenditure Survey for 1984 to calculate item wise and overall economies of scale. [source] Housing Wealth, Financial Wealth and Consumption in ChinaCHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 3 2009Jie Chen E21; E32 Abstract The paper investigates the relationship between changes in asset wealth and the trend movements of household consumption in urban China. Using the vector error correction cointegration model, we demonstrate that there is a unique long-run cointegrating relationship between household consumption, disposable income, financial wealth and housing wealth in urban China. We find that housing wealth is the only factor that restores the long-run equilibrium relationship when the cointegrated system is disturbed by an external shock. In addition, our permanent,transitory variance decomposition analysis indicates that nearly all variance in the movement of consumption is permanent, supporting the classical random walk hypothesis of consumption behavior. However, a large proportion of variance in the short-run movements of housing wealth is found to be transitory. [source] How China Could Contribute to a Benign Global Rebalancing?CHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 5 2008Pingfan Hong E21; F32 Abstract Our study shows that China could contribute to an orderly global rebalancing using a package of policies to stimulate its domestic consumption. These policies include a progressive appreciation of the RMB, fiscal stimulation by increasing expenditure on education, health care, social safety nets and poverty reduction, income policies to reduce inequality and to strengthen wage income, and reforms of the financial system to improve financial efficiency and to mitigate financial constraints. By implementing such policies, China's external surplus could be narrowed and its domestic imbalances improved. The excessively high savings rate could be lowered and the share of household consumption increased, even though GDP growth would moderate slightly. [source] | |||||||||||||