Journal of Integrative Agriculture ›› 2021, Vol. 20 ›› Issue (9): 2569-2580.DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(20)63585-7

所属专题: 农业经济与管理合辑Agricultural Economics and Management

• 论文 • 上一篇    

  

  • 收稿日期:2020-07-15 出版日期:2021-09-01 发布日期:2021-07-20

Mental accounting and consumption of self-produced food

HUANG Jia-qi1, 2, Gerrit ANTONIDES2, Christian H. KUHLGATZ3, NIE Feng-ying1 
  

  1. 1 Agricultural Information Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, P.R.China
    2 Urban Economics Group, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen 6706 KN, The Netherlands
    3 Market Analysis Unit, Federal Office for Agriculture FOAG, 3003 Bern, Switzerland
  • Received:2020-07-15 Online:2021-09-01 Published:2021-07-20
  • Contact: Correspondence NIE Feng-ying, Tel: +86-10-82109901, E-mail: niefengying@caas.cn; Gerrit ANTONIDES, E-mail: gerrit.antonides@wur.nl
  • About author:HUANG Jia-qi, E-mail: huangjiaqi@caas.cn;
  • Supported by:
    This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (71861147003 and 71661147001), and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS-ASTIP-2016-AII). 

摘要:

该研究旨在探索心理账户理论与农户自产食物消费之间的关联。我们假设心理账户理论可能适用于解释农户分配和使用自产食物的部分行为。收获后农户预留部分自产食物作为自食账户,并一直消费自食账户中的食物。由心理账户理论在其他应用领域中发现的特征,我们推测农户在对自产食物的消费上可能出现以下现象:心理账户使得农户忽略自食账户的机会成本,使其对价格变动不敏感;当某一种农产品的产量小于农户消费需求(设定的自食账户量)时,产量对自食消费有显著正向影响;当产量大于农户消费需求时,产量对自食消费不再有显著影响。研究采用来自中国六个贫困县的农户调查数据,针对大米、面粉、马铃薯、猪肉、鸡蛋五种食物自产部分的消费,运用双对数需求模型验证以上假设。结果表明当产量小于农户消费需求时,自产面粉、马铃薯、猪肉的消费符合价格不敏感假设,而当产量大于农户消费需求时,自产大米、猪肉、鸡蛋的消费符合价格不敏感假设。产量对五种自产食物的消费都有显著正向影响,但当产量小于农户消费需求时的影响程度远大于产量大于农户消费需求时。由此进一步讨论了研究的局限性、政策含义以及未来的研究方向



Abstract:

This is an exploratory study on mental accounting and food budgeting of agricultural households, in which we assumed that agricultural households may have a mental account for consumption of their self-produced food.  Accordingly, they may reserve a certain quantity of self-produced food as a set budget for own consumption, implying that they may keep on consuming their own produce until they have consumed the quantity set for the mental budget.  By making the mental accounting assumption, we hypothesized that the consumption of self-produced food is independent of market price.  Also, we hypothesized that the consumption of self-produced food is increasing in the quantity of production if production is lower than the set budget, and independent of the quantity of production if production exceeds the set budget.  By applying a double-log demand model and using survey data from six poor rural counties in China, we tested these hypotheses for five food items, which are rice, flour, potatoes, pork, and eggs.  We found that the hypothesis of no significant effect of price holds for flour, potatoes, and pork if production is lower than the set budget, and for rice, pork, and eggs if production is higher than the set budget.  Production has a significant positive effect on consumption of self-produced food but with a much greater influence when production is lower than the set budget for all five food items.  These findings partly support our assumption of mental accounting of self-produced food.  Limitations, policy implications, and possible future studies are discussed.
 

Key words: mental accounting ,  food consumption ,  self-produced food ,  agricultural household