Search results

Individuals who spend a large percentage of their incomes on consumption are perceived to prefer risks. Since entrepreneurs are well recognized as risk-takers, this chapter investigates whether consumption propensity is associated with entrepreneurship. Using micro-level data from Chinese Household Income Project, we find that households with a higher income–consumption ratio on average have a higher preference for risk-seeking, while they have a lower probability to be entrepreneurs. However, households who have higher consumption–income ratio and are in the top 10% of the wealth distribution are more likely to embark on entrepreneurship. In addition, we find that in-system connection (relationship with government-related units) decreases the likelihood of starting new business, while out-system connection (relationship with market units) increases it. These findings suggest that in an imperfect financial market, start-up finance and connections play important roles for entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the new rural social pension program’s effect on household consumption in rural China.

The paper employs field data in Hebei Province and comprehensively applies the ordinary least squares regression model and the difference-in-difference matching method.

The findings show that participation in the Program may not obviously increase household consumption, rather it significantly inhibits the marginal propensity of young families’ consumption temporarily without an apparent impact on participating households’ consumption.

In addition to maintain the stability of the basic system framework of the new rural social pension program and preserve or increase the value of the fund under the Program, dynamic adjustments to pension levels should be made as and when appropriate.

The study provides a new empirical evidence for the relationship between the new rural social pension program and consumption and gives insight into potential modifications and improvements to the Program.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the teaching of undergraduate macroeconomics.

To suggest a roadmap, based on a consumption function, to be used by instructors willing to teach the Lucas Critique subject.

Therefore, this paper proposes a lesson, which consists of three parts, to help undergraduates better understand the subject: (1) a grading exercise to bring the topic closer to students’ lives; (2) a Keynesian and an optimal consumption function, followed by an example based on an unemployment insurance policy; and (3) two optional topics consisting of extensions of the optimal consumption function and some empirical results related to the Lucas Critique.

The Lucas Critique influenced the evolution of research in macroeconomics, but it is not easily grasped in a classroom.

This paper explores the role of Zakah in social cause marketing. Academic literature on Islamic economics, finance and management mostly deals with the links that exists between Zakah and consumption, neglecting important and strategic links with social cause marketing. This paper emanated from need to outline social cause and the charitable role of Zakah in promoting Halal businesses, poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Most works in the field of Zakah did not foresee the role of marketing. This is a misjudgement, as this work showed that Zakah yields large and measurable social gains to help the society and a firm.

Secondary sources were used in writing this paper. Available literature in the form of journals, books, manuals and reports was referred to. As a conceptual work, the paper does not test hypothesis or pretends to provide empirical evidences. It uses mathematical economics in arriving at some of the conclusions. Findings were derived through deductions and critical discourses, not through crunching of primary data.

The paper shows how Zakah, Halal consumption and corporate social responsibility are connected and highlights the role of Zakah as a social marketing tool. It shows how Zakah affects consumption through marginal propensity of Zakah recipients who spend Zakah money on basic needs.

The paper looks at the broad aspects of Zakah and social marketing. How to make Zakah a pillar of Islamic firms’ social cause programs shall be the focus of future academic works in this area.

The paper is unique in drawing attention of Islamic firms to the effectiveness of Zakah in building a corporate image. It draws the attention of firms, activists, academics and governments to functions of Zakah that have not been studied in depth.

In response to the pandemic, the Korean government introduced fiscal measures: including the Emergency Disaster Relief Funds which is the first-ever universal benefit in Korea. This paper identifies the effects of the measures on poverty, household income and household consumption expenditure under the disproportionate effect of the pandemic.

This study analysed the Korea Household Income and Expenditure Survey (KHIES) with Changes-in-Changes at five percentiles (5, 25, 50, 75 and 95%) instead of Difference-in-Differences (DD) because the parallel trends assumption of DD cannot be investigated due to the recent KHIES redesign. In addition, it also exmined the effects on vulnerable groups (e.g. female, elderly and young households).

COVID-19 has had prompt and disproportionate effects on the vulnerable, such as low-income, female and elderly households. However, the government measures had a limited effect. First, the measures could not mitigate the initial income reduction and only had temporary positive effects on income and consumption expenditure. Second, young households tended to save the relief instead of present consumption. Lastly, education disparity was observed at 25 and 50%. Therefore, this study suggests that response measures need to be sustainable and concentrated on the vulnerable.

A large literature estimated effects on either household income or household consumption expenditure, and focused on macroeconomic indices (e.g. marginal propensity to consumption). This study analysed both income (poverty) and consumption expenditure and found policy implications for better welfare system in an economic downturn.

This chapter is devoted to fiscal policy theory and to how its evolution influenced the policy principles implemented from the end of the World War II to the present. It shows how the theoretical foundations evolved, from the Keynesian theory according to which public expenditure was conceived as an instrument to sustain aggregate demand and achieve full employment, to the present theoretical framework in which, following the intertemporal approach, it has been downgraded to an external shock. The public debt issue is examined with the aim of explaining why sound public finance represents a primary policy objective in the Eurozone.

This paper aims to investigate the macroeconomic effects of Qard-al-Hasan (QH) as a tool of monetary policy (MP) and its effectiveness in achieving full employment and price stability in the economy.

QH-based MP and its effects on major macroeconomic variables are examined on theoretical ground by using the standard aggregate output and aggregate expenditure model within the framework of Islamic economic principles.

QH-based MP positively influences real sectors of the economy and increases output, and the economy returns to full employment. QH provides the lowest possible borrowing costs across the economy and thus triggers rightward shift in aggregate supply curve and thus increases output and lowers price level. In addition, increase in output eliminates excess demand or shortages and thus maintains price stability. Furthermore, QH-based MP also increases exportable surplus and exports, decreases imports as well as increases inflow of funds and foreign currency reserves with the Central Bank and thus makes MP more effective.

QH-based MP is usually expansionary MP, and as such, it can be argued that there is a probability that QH-based MP may lead to higher inflation rate. However, in this study, it has been shown with real world data in Table II, that 23 countries in Group 1 have pursued zero or negative interest rate policy and their experiences mitigate such probability.

This is, perhaps, the first paper that presents a complete model of QH as a tool of MP with fully explained transmission mechanism. This is new contribution in the literature of Islamic finance where theoretical model on QH is systematically developed and applied as an effective tool of MP in attaining full employment and price stability. This model of QH-based MP can unfold a new horizon of uninterrupted economic growth, full employment and price stability by increasing output and employment, as well as by eliminating excess demand or shortages.

China's resource allocation mechanism in education has become an important factor in determining residential access to educational resources. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impacts made by the individual natures of buyers, the external environment, as well as the characteristics of residential properties on the willingness price of buyers. The study's aim is to lay theoretical foundations for the determination of problems related with the matters under consideration.

Using the panel data of 54 districts and counties in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the study unifies macro factors and micro factors in a model for empirical analysis.

Basic education resources can affect housing prices via the “capitalization of education.” The degree of those educational resources’ influence on willingness price changes according to personal income levels, standards of living, housing price fluctuations, the convenience of the residential area and the degrees of urbanization in a district. The greater the buyer's income and standard of living is, the higher is their willingness price. Buyers in urbanized areas prefer increases in educational resources. Increased educational resources increase the values of residential downtown areas. In developed areas with private educational facilities, the role of educational resources in influencing property prices is relatively small.

This paper uses data concerning the consumption and investment of residential properties to build a theoretical model for the willingness price of buyers. It unifies macro factors and micro factors in a single model and presents new results about basic education resources and the willingness price of buyers under different conditions.

Industrial feudalism is a socio-economic formation of advanced capitalist countries in which society becomes stratified into closed, hierarchically-defined social groups. In the writings of Ludwik Krzywicki and Oskar Lange, industrial feudalism is associated with the dominance of monopoly finance capital. The chapter extends this analysis of twenty-first century capitalism in which social groups are differentiated by the kind of property that they own and hence the kind of credit to which they have access to prevent becoming déclassé. However asset inflation then inhibits upward social mobility, confining households to their inherited social class. This inhibits labour mobility. But the availability of credit for the propertied classes also defines attitudes towards state welfare provision.