A nation’s mission of housing and food consumption: An analysis of household budget survey expenditures in Kosovo

Aliu, Florin and Mulaj, Isa (2020): A nation’s mission of housing and food consumption: An analysis of household budget survey expenditures in Kosovo. Forthcoming in:

Abstract

In the digital and artificial intelligence intensification era where up to 2/3 of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is generated from the service sector, nearly ¾ of household budget is spent by the Kosovo families in food and accommodation. This is a larger and greater share than in the neighboring countries to which Kosovo approximately has the same level of income per capita. At the same time, for some years spending for education until the recent available data remains below 1%, showing another difference with the neighboring countries in volume as well as in total share of household budget expenditures. Using the secondary data from the Kosovo Agency of Statistics (KAS) on household survey, this paper finds that the ongoing high share of income spending in food and accommodation at the expense of other sectors becomes a source of inefficiency. Moreover, this issue might plunge the households into unaffordable debts and problems with their future payments. The population on a large scale consider much of their life mission only through available incomes for food and housing (construction of houses and buying furniture) as a wealth. In contrast to the previous studies, the recommendations from the findings of our work address recommendations to the population, because the government, state and public institutions are a product of this people whose primary life objective is in buildings and consumption on individual, family and clannish bases.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Kosovo, household budget survey, housing, consumption, education
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation

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