Consumer economics is a branch of
economics. It is a broad field, principally concerned with
microeconomic
Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...
analysis behavior in units of
consumers,
families, or individuals (in contrast to traditional economics, which primarily
government or
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
units). It sometimes also encompasses family
financial planning and policy analysis. The term largely describes what was more commonly called "
home economics" in the past.
History
The traditional economists had little interest in analyzing family units. When economic theory was insufficient to explain the phenomenon of women starting to enter the labor force ''en masse'', consumer economics both gained attention and received important contributions from economic theorists. Major theoretical cornerstones include
Gary Becker's Household Production Model, time allocation models and Stigler's information search theory.
Consumer economics concludes the family-unit economists were strongly influenced by the most recent "consumer era"; which was the "Modern Consumer Movement" of the 1970s. The connection between Consumer Economics and consumer-related politics has been overt, although the strength of the connection varies between Universities and individuals.
Many facets of consumer economics are measured regularly by the
Federal Reserve System and the
Bureau of Economic Analysis
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the United States Department of Commerce is a U.S. government agency that provides official economy of the United States, macroeconomic and industry statistics, most notably reports about the gross domestic ...
and are available for the public. A number of indicators are published regularly from these and other academic sources, such as personal income, total
household debt, and the
Consumer Leverage Ratio.
The effect of consumer economics on the economy is another field of study in economics. It is called the "
consumer economy A consumer economy describes an economy driven by consumer spending as a percent of its gross domestic product, as opposed to the other major components of GDP (gross private domestic investment, government spending, and imports netted against expo ...
", a term known from Hazlitt's
Economics in One Lesson.
See also
*
Consumer Leverage Ratio
*
Family and consumer science
References
*Bryant, K. & Zick, C. The Economic Organization of the Household (2006). Cambridge University Press.
Department of Housing and Consumer Economics - University of Georgia
{{Consumer behaviour
Family economics