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Similarities in the Consumption Patterns of the Five Asian Tigers

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  • Eliyathahby Antony Selvanathan
  • Saroja Selvanathan

Abstract

The five countries of Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are considered to be the major Asian economic ‘Tigers’ behind Asia's growth in the late 1900s. In this paper, we analyze the consumption patterns of these five countries, using the most recent consumption data and employing the system‐wide approach. We find that the consumption data from these five countries support a number of empirical regularities, including the ‘law of demand’ and ‘Engel's law’. Based on the estimation results, we find that in all five countries, food, housing and medical care (except in Taiwan) are necessities, while clothing, durables (except in Singapore) and transport are luxuries. Demand for all the commodities is price inelastic. Furthermore, we find that the demand hypothesis, homogeneity, is acceptable for all five countries while Slutsky symmetry is acceptable only for Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. We also find that the preference‐independence hypothesis is acceptable for all countries except Japan. Overall, consumption patterns of consumers appear to be similar across the five countries, while some differences exist between Japan and the other four countries.

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  • Eliyathahby Antony Selvanathan & Saroja Selvanathan, 2003. "Similarities in the Consumption Patterns of the Five Asian Tigers," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 297-323, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:asiaec:v:17:y:2003:i:3:p:297-323
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8381.2003.00188.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Lyons, Sean & Mayor, Karen & Tol, Richard S.J., 2009. "Convergence of consumption patterns during macroeconomic transition: A model of demand in Ireland and the OECD," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 702-714, May.
    2. Rathnayaka, Shashika D. & Selvanathan, Eliyathamby A. & Selvanathan, Saroja, 2022. "Modelling the consumption patterns in the Asian countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 277-296.
    3. Genovaitė Liobikienė & Justina Mandravickaitė, 2013. "Convergence of new members of the EU: changes in household consumption expenditure structure regarding environmental impact during the prosperous period," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 407-427, April.
    4. Meng-Shiuh Chang & Teng-Yuan Hu & Ching-Yuan Lin, 2016. "Variation in Engel's law across quantiles in Taiwan: toward an alternative concept of near poverty line," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 103-115, January.
    5. Haider, Adnan & Zaidi, Masroor, 2017. "Food Consumption Patterns and Nutrition Disparity in Pakistan," MPRA Paper 83522, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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