| چکیده انگلیسی مقاله |
Introduction: Knowledge of the socio-economic characteristics and the household life cycle expenditure profiles in different ages, incomes and expenditure groups is an important tool for evaluating policies and social and economic planning for each country. This topic has always been one of the most important economic issues at the level of micro and macro data to investigate and analyse the economic behavior of the households in lifetime. Therefore, in this article, the expenditure profile of urban households during 1996-2008 is investigated to identify the gradual change of expenditure distribution for some major consumer items of households. Method: The present research is a descriptive and economic analyse based on Urban Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data during 1996-2008 to investigate consumption profiles of these households and analyze the trend changes. In this paper, in addition to descriptive analysis of changes in consumption trends, a well-known technique developed in Deaton (Deaton, 1997) was used, we have estimated the life cycle expenditure profiles of cohorts. In this method, the household's expenditure is decomposed into cohort, age, and period effects in a way that enables the investigation of the components of the cohort life cycle profiles of consumption. Findings: One of the most important finding in this research is the change of life cycle profiles of expenditure of urban household during the years under investigation in 1996, the share of non-food commodities expenditures is approximately 2.5 times of food expenditures while in 2008, this share is almost reached to 4 times. Also through these years, the share on clothing and footwear dramatically decreased while expenditure share on miscellaneous goods and services dramatically increased and the expenditure share on medical care and health services, communication and transportation increased. The results of the modeling for household's expenditure indicated that there exist different life-cycle profile curves among various consumer goods for urban households in which the profile of nondurable, durable and transportation expenditures rises sharply until about age 55 and become flat after it while the profile expenditures of cultural services and entertainment, prepared foods, hotels and restaurants in Iranian households are hump shaped over the life cycle, peaking in age 55. The expenditures of clothing and footwear in Iranian households are hump shaped over the life cycle, peaking at age 45. Also the consumption profiles of households with men and women heads are different and the significance level for modeling is 0.05. Discussion: The results showed that the purchasing power of households is lower in early life time and thus preparing the durable goods, utilities and living standards are difficult to reach. But after several years of work and employment in various economic sectors, by increasing the productivity of individuals and households, and thus increasing their purchasing power, supplying the goods and utilities become easy and achieving the desired standard level of living is provided. On the other hand, costs of the younger cohorts are more than older cohorts (even at the same age) that this issue due to rapid economic growth can lead to better incomes and consequently higher cost of younger generation. |