IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/51275.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What gives? Household consumption patterns and the‘Big Trade Off’ with public consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Bastagli, Francesca
  • Hills, John

Abstract

At the centre of politics in Britain and other countries is what is sometimes called ‘the big trade-off’ – where to strike the balance between private consumption and collective goods and social spending – and hence the sacrifices that would be entailed by the higher taxation required to fund otherwise desirable forms of social provision. In this paper we use aggregate national accounts data to compare the composition of household consumption between otherwise similar countries with higher and lower levels of public consumption. We concentrate in particular on spending patterns in ten countries where ‘total potential consumption’ (the sum of public and household consumption and household saving) is similar to that in the UK, using data from 2005. While the strengths of the inferences that can be drawn from a small number of countries are limited, overall these results suggest that there is a hierarchy in the forms of consumption that citizens of different countries sacrifice when they have greater government consumption (and so higher taxes). The trade-off at the margin is not with all kinds of consumption equally, but particularly with consumption of particular kinds – such as spending on restaurants and hotels, vehicle purchase, household furnishings, or clothing and footwear. But there are also items, such as education, where government spending may act as a substitute for what private households would have to spend. Such findings could colour our views of what the ‘big trade-off’ between public and private consumption really entails.

Suggested Citation

  • Bastagli, Francesca & Hills, John, 2013. "What gives? Household consumption patterns and the‘Big Trade Off’ with public consumption," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51275, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:51275
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/51275/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ngai, L. Rachel & Pissarides, Christopher A., 2009. "Welfare policy and the distribution of hours of work," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28698, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Ohanian, Lee & Raffo, Andrea & Rogerson, Richard, 2008. "Long-term changes in labor supply and taxes: Evidence from OECD countries, 1956-2004," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1353-1362, November.
    3. A. B. Atkinson, 1999. "The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011719, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Constantin Anghelache & Madalina Gabriela Anghel & Marius Popovici, 2015. "Multiple Regressions Used in Analysis of Private Consumption and Public Final Consumption Evolution," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 69-73, October.
    2. Alexandru MANOLE & Mariana BUNEA & Ana CARP & Diana-Valentina SOARE & Maria MIREA, 2017. "Model analysis of the correlation between final consumption and its components," Romanian Statistical Review Supplement, Romanian Statistical Review, vol. 65(2), pages 105-113, February.
    3. Madalina-Gabriela ANGHEL & Ana CARP & Marian SFETCU & Stefan Gabriel DUMBRAVA, 2017. "Econometric Model For Analyzing The Influence Of Factors On Final Consumption," Romanian Statistical Review Supplement, Romanian Statistical Review, vol. 65(10), pages 123-131, October.
    4. Anghelache Constantin & Anghel Madalina-Gabriela, 2017. "Econometric Model For Complex Analyses And Forecast Of The Gross Domestic Product," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1, pages 5-12, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:cep:sticas:/170 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ngai, L. Rachel & Pissarides, Christopher A., 2009. "Welfare policy and the distribution of hours of work," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28698, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Bruno Amable & Donatella Gatti & Jan Schumacher, 2006. "Welfare-State Retrenchment: The Partisan Effect Revisited," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 22(3), pages 426-444, Autumn.
    4. Szamuely, László, 2004. "A haldokló jóléti állam az 1990-es években [The "moribund" welfare state in the 1990s]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 948-969.
    5. Üngör, Murat, 2014. "Some thought experiments on the changes in labor supply in Turkey," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 265-272.
    6. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    7. Facundo Piguillem & Anderson Schneider, 2013. "Heterogeneous Labor Skills, The Median Voter and Labor Taxes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(2), pages 332-349, April.
    8. Freddy Heylen & Renaat Van de Kerckhove, 2014. "Heterogeneous ability and the effects of fiscal policy on employment, income and welfare in general equilibrium," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 14/898, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    9. Jonathan Temple & Huikang Ying & Patrick Carter, 2014. "Transfers and Transformations: Remittances, Foreign Aid, and Growth," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 14/649, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK, revised 02 Dec 2014.
    10. Jäntti, Markus & Pirttilä, Jukka & Selin, Håkan, 2015. "Estimating labour supply elasticities based on cross-country micro data: A bridge between micro and macro estimates?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 87-99.
    11. Felipe Meza, 2008. "Financial Crisis, Fiscal Policy, and the 1995 GDP Contraction in Mexico," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(6), pages 1239-1261, September.
    12. Christina Behrendt, 2000. "Holes in the Safety Net? Social Security and the Alleviation of Poverty in a Comparative Perspective," LIS Working papers 259, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. Long Xin & Pelloni Alessandra, 2011. "Welfare improving taxation on savings in a growth model," wp.comunite 0091, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    14. Minza Mudassar & Prof. Dr. Asif Shamim & Muzamir M. Mafabi & Nasir Aziz kamboh, 2024. "Analyzing the Relationship between Macroeconomic Factors and Interpersonal Trust: A Multivariate Examination of Global Data," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 13(2), pages 475-480.
    15. Chen, Been-Lon & Lu, Chia-Hui, 2013. "Optimal factor tax incidence in two-sector human capital-based models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 75-94.
    16. T. Buyse & F. Heylen & R. Van De Kerckhove, 2011. "Pension reform, employment by age, and long-run growth in OECD countries," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/719, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    17. Lopez-Daneri, Martin, 2016. "NIT picking: The macroeconomic effects of a Negative Income Tax," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-16.
    18. Brendan Epstein & Miles S. Kimball, 2014. "The Decline of Drudgery and the Paradox of Hard Work," International Finance Discussion Papers 1106, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Sanjay K. Chugh & Christian Merkl, 2016. "Efficiency And Labor Market Dynamics In A Model Of Labor Selection," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1371-1404, November.
    20. Tino Berger & Freddy Heylen, 2011. "Differences in Hours Worked in the OECD: Institutions or Fiscal Policies?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(7), pages 1333-1369, October.
    21. Roberto Scazzieri & Lilia Costabile, 2006. "Social Models, Growth and the International Monetary System: Implications for Europe and the United States," Working Papers wp117, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    household consumption; government spending; government consumption; international comparisons;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:51275. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.