Households costs of Ukraine’s regions: factor analysis

The article presents a factor analysis of household spending in the regions of Ukraine. It is established that the pattern of consumer behavior of households has changed significantly over the last decade, and the share of savings, especially cash in foreign currency, has increased. On the whole, there has been a rapid increase in the poverty level of the population. It has been proved that the consumer model of Ukrainian households in recent years does not fit into the framework of traditional «income» theories. A five-factor linear function of consumption dependence on the official hryvnia exchange rate, gross external debt, unemployment rate, population and social transfers has been developed. Household spending is an aggregate measure that summarizes the behavior of all actors at the macro level. The results of the analysis indicate a significant level of import dependence of domestic producers on imported goods. Population growth as a factor leads to an increase in household consumption in the regions of Ukraine. The article presents a number of regional differences in consumer models of households in the Eastern, Black Sea, Carpathian and Polissya economic regions. The development of linear five-factor consumption and savings functions of Ukrainian households, the analysis of regression coefficients and elasticity indicators revealed that the largest negative impact on the change in consumer spending was the change in population size, the stable positive effect was the amount of transfer payments. An analysis of the multifactor linear consumption functions by economic area found that among the studied factors, two (official hryvnia exchange rate against the euro and current transfers) were stimulants and two (discount rate and unemployment rate) were stimulators.