중국의 가계소비 규모와 증가율의 추정

Abstract

This paper attempts to estimate the size of China’s household consumptionusing various methods, comparing it with that of the U.S. and Korea. The resultsshows that the size of China’s consumption is big enough to become the secondlargest in the world. However, the estimates are quite diverse depending on themethod of estimation, with the minimum of 30% of the U.S and the moreappropriate estimate of 51% of the U.S.. Then, this paper estimate the real growth rate of household consumption forthe peirod of 2000∼2013, using the nominal amount of household consumptionand consumer price index. The outcome of the estimation shows that the realgrowth rate of household consumption was lower than the GDP growth rate until2008, while the opposite case is observed for 2009∼2013, except just 2010. Thefinding suggests that household consumption began to contribute more to thegrowth after the global financial crisis of 2008. However, the degree of increase inhousehold consumption has been rather too small for consumption to become anew major engine of growth in China. This situation is likely to continue in foreseeable future including 2015. Whilegrowth rate continues to decline with substantial cooling-off of the real estatesector, the growth rate of household consumption cannot accelerate for the timebeing. In this context, Chinese government will be forced to muddle through thesituation with small scale stimulation and continued implementation of diversereform measures.