Four Decades Of Poverty And Consumption In China

Since 2010, China’s miraculous growth has come to a halt and has shown steady deceleration. To re-accelerate economic growth, stimulating domestic consumption is a crucial way with fighting poverty as the key step. This paper attempts to explore the impact of poverty on resident consumption in China over the last four decades. Based on provincial data, we first simulate income distribution at the individual level and provide moderate poverty profiles at the provincial level. The empirical analyses are then conducted to gauge the poverty impacts using the estimated poverty index. Results show that (1) moderate poverty has decreased sharply in China, with the best achievement in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong; (2) moderate poverty exerts a significantly negative impact on resident consumption; and (3) when poverty increases, resident consumption on household equipment decreases the most, while resident consumption on food, transportation, and telecommunication decreases the least.