The decline in average family size and its implications for the average benefits of within-household sharing
The decline in average family size and its implications for the average benefits of within-household sharing
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DOI：
10.1093/oep/gpv033
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发表时间：
2015-07-01
影响因子：
1.2
通讯作者：
Okubo, Toshihiro
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Schroeder, Carsten;Rehdanz, Katrin;Okubo, Toshihiro
经济政策依赖于人口预测。然而，在进行这些预测时，研究人员往往忽视了家庭形成的方面-尽管许多工业化国家的家庭单位持续缩小，成员减少。从长期来看，这一趋势可能会减少微观层面上家庭内部分享商品/服务的好处（家庭规模经济），从而增加宏观层面上家庭部门的需求。我们提出了一个框架，（a）量化不同家庭类型的家庭规模经济水平，（B）评估家庭平均规模的下降如何影响家庭部门的总需求。我们将该框架应用于日本的能源消费。该申请表明，家庭在能源使用方面的规模经济是巨大的，2005年至2010年期间，日本平均家庭规模下降了5%，导致整个经济体的家庭规模经济损失近4%。
Economic policies rely on demographic projections. Yet in making these projections, researchers often ignore the aspect of household formation-despite sustained trends in many industrialized countries towards smaller household units with fewer members. Over the long term, this trend is likely to reduce the benefits of sharing goods/services within households (household economies of scale) at the micro-level, thereby increasing household-sector demand at the macro level. We propose a framework to (a) quantify the level of household economies of scale for different household types and (b) assess how the decline in average household size impacts aggregate household-sector demand. We apply the framework to energy consumption in Japan. The application indicates that household economies of scale in energy use are substantial and that the 5% decline in average household size in Japan between 2005 and 2010 led to an economy-wide loss in household economies of scale amounting to almost 4%.