| 中文摘要 |
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether demand for foods in urban China is heterogeneous. Under the assumption of the two-stage budgeting, 18 food-at-home items are divided into five sub-groups. As a result, we estimate six separate quadratic almost ideal demand systems for the two stages, which incorporate demographic variables using the ”ordinary budget share scaling and translation” (OBSSAT) and a two-step estimator to deal with zero consumption problems when necessary. Employing Chinese urban household data in three coastal provinces in 1998, our empirical results show that, first, demographic variables are as important as economic factors in explaining food demands using the OBSSAT. Regional heterogeneity is strongly supported by using household data from three coastal provinces; therefore, China should be treated as several markets instead of one huge market. Second, income is still one of the most important economic factors affecting food demands. As household income consistently increases in urban China, our findings imply that the poor and the rich would react differently about their food consumption in relation to an increase in income. Finally, 18 at-home food items are investigated in this study; these food items also respond heterogeneously to prices, income, and demographic variables.
本研究的主要目的是探討中國城鎮的食品需求是否具有異質性。在兩階段預算配置的前提下，本文根據中國膳食寶塔將18項在家消費食品分為五群；並依據資料特性，考量多種研究方法來解決估計時的問題，其中包括使用二次近似理想需求體系作為模型設定、運用「一般預算份額之比例縮放和轉換」法來納入社會人口變數以及使用兩步驟估計法處理零值消費。利用1998年廣東、江蘇和山東三省的城鎮居民資料，本研究的實證結果顯示：第一、在解釋在家消費的食品需求時，社會人口變數和經濟變數的重要性，不分軒輊。由於不同省份間對於食品需求存在相當程度的差異；因此中國應被視為多個市場而非一個市場。第二，所得仍是影響食品需求最重要的經濟變數。隨著中國城鎮家庭收入的不斷增加，貧富差距將反應在不同的食品消費上。最後，本研究所包含的18項在家消費食品，對於價格、所得和人口統計變數的反應也表現得相當分歧。因此，本研究的實證結果充分說明中國城鎮在家消費的食品需求是異質的。 |
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