The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 55 No. 4 1973
Consumption Function Analysis in a Communal Household: Cross Section and Time Series
Abstract
T HIS paper presents an inquiry into the consumption patterns of a commune. The unit studied is the Israeli kibbutz, which integrates a cooperative enterprise and an egalitarian commune a comprised of 100-200 families or more.' In spite of its unusual size the kibbutz resembles the conventional single-family household as it acts as one indivisible unit in determining the level of its consumption expenditures and outlining the composition of the bill of goods and services to be allocated, mostly in kind, among that household's members.2 Apart from its unusual size, the communal household differs from the conventional household in two respects: The commune's life span is indefinite and it does not have a life cycle. Thus, for instance, the household's size is subject to variation not associated with transformation from one phase to another in a predetermined life cycle. As a predetermined life-span is nonexistent, the commune may be looked upon as a continual household. In this paper an attempt is made to take advantage of the continuous. nature of the communal household in the pursuit of a test of time series and cross-sectional estimates of the consumption-income relationship.3 The first part of this paper focuses on the formulation of a proposition concerning the consumption-income relationship. It also considers alternative ways to estimate the consumption-income coefficients. The second part of this paper presents some empirical results. The generality of our interpretation of the empirical results is discussed in a concluding section.
- DOI
- 10.2307/1925670
- Volume
- 55
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 475
- Sources
- openalex crossref