集体主义与居民家庭消费——来自中国的经验发现

采用详实的微观调查数据,本文实证分析了集体主义对我国居民家庭消费的影响。基于社会网络、社会融入、情感表达和自我控制等四个方面,本文进一步构造了综合集体主义观念,经过稳健性检验和内生性讨论的回归结果显示,综合集体主义观念显著提高了居民家庭消费水平。其中,稳定的社会网络、社会融入和情感表达显著促进了居民家庭消费,而自我控制显著抑制了居民家庭消费。分消费类型看,综合集体主义观念及稳定的社会网络显著提高了不同类型的家庭消费。进一步的研究显示,在互联网普及率更高的地区,集体主义对居民家庭消费的正向促进作用更小。本文的政策涵义在于,在促进居民消费的过程中,相关部门应重视集体主义文化对居民消费的促进作用及其因区域信息化水平不同而产生的差异,以提高政策的精准程度。     

The Impact of Oportunidades on Consumption,Savings and Transfers*

In this paper, we estimate the effect of the Mexican conditional cash transfer programme, Oportunidades, on transfers, savings and consumption for treated households. We find positive effects on consumption of non‐durable and durable goods, an increase in savings coupled with a drop in the number and values of loans, and a reduction of in‐kind transfers received by households in treatment areas. These results are consistent with the existing evidence that conditional cash transfer programmes have beneficial effects in both the short and medium term, but that they partly crowd out private transfers.     

劳动力流动与中国农村居民消费结构——基于LAIDS模型的实证研究

使用1992~2011年的时间序列数据,采用线性几乎理想需求系统模型(LAIDS),重点检验了劳动力流动对农村居民消费结构的影响。研究发现,劳动力流动会使衣着、文教娱乐及服务、医疗消费有所增加,会减少食品、居住消费,对家用几乎没有影响。为此,应增加工资性收入,完善劳动力流动政策和供给结构。     

Gender bias in the spending of child benefits: evidence from a natural policy reform

We examine the causal relationship between child benefits and household spending on child and adult goods. In particular, we examine whether it matters if it is the husband or wife who controls this income transfer. We exploit the introduction of child benefits to families with at least four children. The law assigned the mother as the beneficiary but, when asked who collected the amount, one-third of beneficiary families reported the father as the recipient. We use the propensity score matching approach to assess the issue of possible self-selection of beneficiary families into answering who was the recipient parent and the results favour common support. We apply the difference-in-difference approach and find evidence in favour of a gender bias in the spending of child benefits. On average, after the reform, recipient families’ spending on child clothing, food and tobacco was significantly different from that of non-recipient families. Further analysis suggests that recipient families with the mother (father) in control of the amount spent more on child clothing and food (tobacco) relative to non-recipient families. The evidence has implications on the design of welfare programmes to benefit the children.     

Can Micro Health Insurance Reduce Poverty? Evidence From Bangladesh

This article examines the impact of micro health insurance on poverty reduction in rural areas of Bangladesh. The research is based on household‐level primary data collected from the operating areas of the Grameen Bank during 2006. A number of outcome measures are considered; these include household income, stability of household income via food sufficiency and ownership of nonland assets, and the probability of being above or below the poverty line. The results show that micro health insurance has a positive association with all of these indicators, and this is statistically significant and quantitatively important for food sufficiency.     

Long‐Run Stockholder Consumption Risk and Asset Returns

We provide new evidence on the success of long‐run risks in asset pricing by focusing on the risks borne by stockholders. Exploiting microlevel household consumption data, we show that long‐run stockholder consumption risk better captures cross‐sectional variation in average asset returns than aggregate or nonstockholder consumption risk, and implies more plausible risk aversion estimates. We find that risk aversion around 10 can match observed risk premia for the wealthiest stockholders across sets of test assets that include the 25 Fama and French portfolios, the market portfolio, bond portfolios, and the entire cross‐section of stocks.     

Asset Pricing with Countercyclical Household Consumption Risk

We show that shocks to household consumption growth are negatively skewed, persistent, countercyclical, and drive asset prices. We construct a parsimonious model where heterogeneous households have recursive preferences. A single state variable drives the conditional cross‐sectional moments of household consumption growth. The estimated model fits well the unconditional cross‐sectional moments of household consumption growth and the moments of the risk‐free rate, equity premium, price‐dividend ratio, and aggregate dividend and consumption growth. The model‐implied risk‐free rate and price‐dividend ratio are procyclical, while the market return has countercyclical mean and variance. Finally, household consumption risk explains the cross section of excess returns.     

地方政府财政支出的民生化进程与农村居民消费——基于总量和分类支出视角下的理论分析与实证检验

基于总量和分类支出的视角,从宏观层面对地方政府民生财政支出与农村居民消费进行理论分析,并采用1998~2011年中国大陆31个省市面板数据加以实证检验,研究结果表明：地方政府民生财政支出确实有效地促进了农村居民消费,尤其是对以教育文化娱乐、医疗保健等为主的发展享受性消费的挤入程度要大于以衣食住为主的基本生存性消费;但在民生财政具体分类支出方面影响却存在着差异,即教育和医疗卫生支出对农村居民消费产生显著的挤入效应,而文化和社会保障等支出影响微弱。因此,在稳步扩大民生财政支出比重的同时,应注重优化民生财政支出结构,增加农村居民收入等,全面提高农村居民消费水平。     

我国政府消费与居民消费的关系研究

消费对经济增长具有巨大的拉动作用,我国的总消费率和居民消费率偏低已经严重影响到经济增长。对此,政府消费应当发挥对居民消费的拉动作用或者对总消费率的平滑作用。但实证研究表明,我国的政府消费并没有发挥应有的作用。应当通过加大社会保障支出等措施降低居民支出预期,有效拉动居民消费,或者通过政府消费水平的调整,把总消费率保持在一个适度的水平上。     

The consumption response to household leverage in China: The role of investment at household level

This paper examines whether leverage can improve household consumption and facilitate the consumption upgrading in China. By employing two rounds of Chinese household surveys, our econometric results show that, while household leverage can increase the level of total household consumption expenditures, it can not significantly drive consumption upgrading. Moreover, we explore the impact of household investment factors on the relationship between leverage and consumption. We find that investment exerts a crowding-out effect, while the joint effect of household investment and income can facilitate the relationship between leverage and household consumption since income factors can serve as compensation. Overall, this paper provides new evidence in the context of emerging markets, offering a more comprehensive understanding the relationship between household leverage and consumption.     

债务杠杆、财务脆弱性与家庭异质性消费行为

本文通过引入财务脆弱性来描述家庭无法及时或完全履行偿债义务而发生的财务困境,实证分析了债务杠杆对家庭消费的异质性影响。理论机制分析和基于中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据的实证研究表明,家庭债务杠杆会提升财务脆弱性,从而弱化跨期消费平滑能力,强化消费预算约束,导致家庭落入“高边际消费倾向、低消费支出水平”的低层次消费路径上。进一步分析发现,对于通过负债投资多套房的家庭而言,高债务杠杆会明显增加不确定冲击下的财务脆弱性,进而对消费产生更大的抑制效应;亲友民间借贷的履约机制相对灵活,可以缓解财务脆弱性对家庭消费的抑制效应;债务杠杆上升引致的财务脆弱性,对耐用消费品支出的压缩效应大于非耐用消费品,对农村家庭消费支出的挤占效应大于城镇家庭。本文的研究为我国“不宜依赖消费金融扩大消费”“规范发展消费信贷”等提供了理论解释,对金融服务促进消费发展具有一定政策启示。     

Temptation and Self‐Control: Some Evidence and Applications

This paper studies the empirical relevance of temptation and self‐control using household‐level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We construct an infinite‐horizon consumption‐savings model that allows, but does not require, temptation and self‐control in preferences. In the presence of temptation, a wealth–consumption ratio, in addition to consumption growth, becomes a determinant of the asset‐pricing kernel, and the importance of this additional pricing factor depends on the strength of temptation. To identify the presence of temptation, we exploit an implication of the theory that a more tempted individual should be more likely to hold commitment assets such as individual retirement account (IRA) or 401(k) accounts. Our estimation provides empirical support for temptation preferences. Based on our estimates, we explore some quantitative implications of this class of preferences for capital accumulation in a neoclassical growth model and the welfare cost of the business cycle.     

Designing Index‐Based Livestock Insurance for Managing Asset Risk in Northern Kenya

This article describes a novel index‐based livestock insurance (IBLI) product piloted among pastoralists in Northern Kenya, where insurance markets are effectively absent and uninsured risk exposure is a main cause of poverty. We describe the methodology used to design the contract and its underlying index of predicted area‐average livestock mortality, established statistically using longitudinal observations of household‐level herd mortality fit to remotely sensed vegetation data. Household‐level performance analysis based on simulations finds that IBLI removes 25–40 percent of total livestock mortality risk. We describe the contract pricing and the risk exposures of the underwriter to establish IBLI's reinsurability on international markets.     

Targeted Interventions in Healthcare: The Role of Facility Placement*

Adequate targeting is a primary concern in the design of any social programme that attempts to reach a specific group in society. This paper studies the targeting of a healthcare‐centre programme aimed at the poor that relies on household self‐selection into the programme at the local level. We find that a key variable in determining utilisation of the health centres is location. Households living near a centre are substantially more likely to use it than households living further away. This points to the importance of facility placement in targeting self‐selected health programmes to the poor.     

Household Debt Overhang and Unemployment

We use a labor‐search model to explain why the worst employment slumps often follow expansions of household debt. We find that households protected by limited liability suffer from a household‐debt‐overhang problem that leads them to require high wages to work. Firms respond by posting high wages but few vacancies. This vacancy posting effect implies that high household debt leads to high unemployment. Even though households borrow from banks via bilaterally optimal contracts, the equilibrium level of household debt is inefficiently high due to a household‐debt externality. We analyze the role that a financial regulator can play in mitigating this externality.     

The Distributional Impacts of Indonesia's Financial Crisis on Household Welfare: A "Rapid Response" Methodology

Analyzing the distributional impacts of economic crises is anever more pressing need. If policymakers are to intervene tohelp those most adversely affected, they need to identify thosewho have been hurt most and estimate the magnitude of the harmthey have suffered. They must also respond in a timely manner.This article develops a simple methodology for measuring theseeffects and applies it to analyze the impact of the Indonesianeconomic crisis on household welfare. Using only pre-crisishousehold information, it estimates the compensating variationfor Indonesian households following the 1997 Asian currencycrisis and then explores the results with flexible nonparametricmethods. It finds that virtually every household was severelyaffected, although the urban poor fared the worst. The abilityof poor rural households to produce food mitigated the worstconsequences of the high inflation. The distributional consequencesare the same whether or not households are permitted to substitutetoward relatively cheaper goods. The geographic location ofthe household matters even within urban or rural areas and householdincome categories. Households with young children may have suffereddisproportionately large adverse effects.     

Is domestic consumption dragged down by real estate sector?—Evidence from Chinese household wealth

This paper investigates whether domestic consumption dragged down by real estate sector, using the panel data of China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS) in 2012, 2014 and 2016. This paper constructs the consumption structure upgrading index represented by food, daily necessities and cultural, educational and entertainment expenditure according to the industrial upgrading rate, and builds a model based on LC-PIH theory to analyze whether the change of household wealth has wealth effect on residents consumption. Through empirical analysis, this paper finds that risk-free financial assets have a squeezing effect on household consumption, and risky financial assets, net real estate and productive fixed assets have a significant wealth effect on household consumption. Finally, this article proposed how to promote the upgrading of Resident Consumption Structure in China.     

One Size Fits All? Monetary Policy and Asymmetric Household Debt Cycles in U.S. States

I investigate the nonlinear effects of monetary policy through differences in household debt across U.S. states. After constructing a novel indicator of inflation for the states, I compute state‐specific monetary policy stances as deviations from an aggregate Taylor rule. I find that the effectiveness of monetary policy is curtailed during periods of large household debt imbalances. Moreover, a common U.S. monetary policy does not fit all; it may have asymmetric effects on the economic performance across states, particularly at times of high dispersion in the household debt imbalances, as it may have been the case around the Great Recession.     

A Reexamination of Housing Price and Household Consumption in China: The Dual Role of Housing Consumption and Housing Investment

It is important to investigate the correlation between housing price and household consumption to gain an understanding of the behavior of the economy and effectively handle the consequences of economic development. In the last two decades, the accumulation of housing wealth by Chinese households has not been effectively transmitted to their final consumption. We discovered that the sustained increase in household wealth and housing-ownership rate in China has been accompanied by a decrease in consumption rate. We also identified a negative correlation between housing price and household consumption for both the homeowners who own one housing unit and those who own two units of housing. We investigated this phenomenon in China both theoretically and empirically by capturing the dual nature of housing as a consumption good and an investment vehicle. We found that the demand for second housing units is motivated by increasing housing consumption demand rather than pure investment needs. To explain the mechanisms that drive household-consumption behavior, we also explored the effects on household consumption of China’s educational system, marriage market and ageing society, as well as future housing-market uncertainty. The implications of government intervention in the housing market are discussed.     

“活在当下”还是“未雨绸缪”？——地震对中国城镇家庭储蓄和消费习惯的长期影响

全球有27亿人口生活在地震带上,但现有经济学文献关于地震对家庭储蓄和消费行为的影响研究并不充分。本文认为,相比“未雨绸缪”,“活在当下”假说更适合刻画地震经历对家庭储蓄和消费习惯的长期影响,并提出如下经济机制:地震经历在长期内并不会影响家庭的收入水平,但它带来的死亡风险和心理冲击会使地震带居民更多地进行享受型消费,从而降低家庭储蓄率。基于国家统计局的城镇住户调查数据,本文实证发现:户主5岁以后经历的地震频率越多,其家庭储蓄率显著越低;户主经历的地震频率显著提高了家庭的享受型消费支出(如文化娱乐、养生保健、美容奢侈品支出等),但是对家庭可支配收入和非享受型消费没有显著影响。本文的研究结论有助于理解地震对城镇居民储蓄和消费习惯的长期影响,并为制定激发居民消费潜力的有关政策提供启示。