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Changes in New Zealand Consumer Living Standards during the Period of Deregulation 1984–1996[Note 1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at ...]
Author(s) -
Maki Atsushi
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
economic record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1475-4932
pISSN - 0013-0249
DOI - 10.1111/1475-4932.00070
Subject(s) - deregulation , economics , standard of living , consumption (sociology) , demographic economics , dual (grammatical number) , labour economics , almost ideal demand system , microeconomics , market economy , sociology , production (economics) , art , social science , literature
This paper focuses on changes in New Zealanders’ consumption behaviour during the period of deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s. After estimating the Almost Ideal Demand System, changes in living standards among 10 income classes are analysed based on the dual approach of consumer behaviour. When the observed total expenditure is higher than the estimated minimum cost, this indicates that the standard of living for the income class has improved, and vice versa. My findings suggest that the effect of deregulation varies among income classes and that while the higher income classes benefit most, they do not consistently nor exclusively benefit from deregulation.