消费文化、认知偏差与消费行为偏差

本文放松了理性经济人假设,在行为经济学双曲线贴现模型框架下,以"自我控制"认知偏差及相应的模型参数设定对东西方消费文化差异进行了技术表达,进而阐明了消费过度(欧美国家)和消费不足(东亚国家)这两类消费行为偏差的形成机制。本文采用全球48个国家和地区1978—2007年的面板数据,以儒家虚拟变量和性生活指数作为消费文化的替代变量检验了文化与消费的关系。结果表明,在解释东西方消费率差异时,预防性储蓄等传统理论的解释力远低于不可观测的国家个体效应。儒家虚拟变量和性生活指数能分别解释国家个体效应的28%和58%。这表明消费文化等不随时间改变的个体因素比传统变量更能解释各国居民的消费差异。实践层面上,双曲线贴现模型中锁定技术能有效纠正"自我控制"认知偏差,从而消解儒家文化对消费的深度抑制,可为扩大内需政策创新提供思路启发和技术支撑。

Consumption Culture,Cognitive Bias and Consumption Anomalies

This paper loose the hypothesis of "rational agent", expresses the culture with cognitive bias of self control in the frame of behavioral hyperbolic discounting model, and explains the mechanism of insufficient consumption(in Europe and America) and excessive consumption(in East Asia). We regress between culture and consumption with a panel data covering 48 countries over year 1978 to 2007. The results show that traditional explanatory variables such as precautionary saving are less powerful than the unobservable country individual effects in explaining consumption rate difference, and Confucianism dummy variable and sex indices which proxy culture can explain 28% and 58% of those unobservable country individual effects. This indicates that culture which unchangeable over time is stronger than traditional variables in explaining consumption rate difference across countries. In practice, consumption commitment technology originated from the hyperbolic discounting model, can effectively correct consumption bias due to the cognitive bias induced by consumption culture, hence can make the intervention policy more effectively which is aimed at increasing internal demand in China.