Modeling Consumption and Saving Decision Making Behavior of People in the Settings of Urban Eastern Ethiopian Communities : A Heterodox Economics Approach.

Demiessie, Habtamu (2020): Modeling Consumption and Saving Decision Making Behavior of People in the Settings of Urban Eastern Ethiopian Communities : A Heterodox Economics Approach.

Abstract

This study is aimed at modeling the essential behavioral and institutional aspects of the economic fabric of urban eastern Ethiopian communities with an emphasis on consumption/saving regime. Analysis made was based on interdisciplinary approach. The principles of a hypothetical research govern key aspects of inferences made. The study hypothesized that the essential construct of the consumption/saving regime is by product of shared value system in the communities of interest. In this regard, the shared value system is the result of a more or commonly shared environment (economic, socio-cultural, political, past governance, geographic and geo-political) by urban eastern Ethiopian communities in the past and present. The importance of shared value system is interpreted in shaping consumption/saving decision making behavior of people in its implications to making life uncertain/risky. The study found out that the constructs of prevailing consumption/saving regime is behavioral and institutional response mechanisms people/households/communities design to cope up the uncertain/risky nature of life in general and that of their economic life in particular. As prevailing uncertainties in life are not faced and/or felt equally by people/households/communities, generalization made on behavioral and institutional features of the consumption/saving regime is not linear across the board. In this regard, the potency of behavioral and institutional modeling made on consumption/saving regime is subjected to variations across individuals/communities of various entities: income/ occupational/ consumption groups; generations; locations (urban versus rural); socio demographic variables, among others. The study further concludes that consumption/saving decision of individuals and/or the overall economic fabric in the settings of eastern Ethiopian communities is a complex phenomenon which is not only motivated by economic factors, but triggered by a host of non economic determinants attributed to psychological,psychosocial, sociological, anthropological and geographical variables. Therefore, academic and policy interventions meant to study/influence the consumption/saving regime in the case of urban eastern Ethiopian communities requires considering the mentioned economic and non economic variables with an interdisciplinary/multi sectoral tools/approaches.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Eastern Ethiopia Shared Value System Consumption Decision Process Group Decision Making
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B52 - Institutional ; Evolutionary; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E21 - Consumption ; Saving ; Wealth; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J17 - Value of Life ; Forgone Income; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology

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