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

Habtamu Demiessie

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

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.

Keywords: Eastern; Ethiopia; Shared; Value; System; Consumption; Decision; Process; Group; Decision; Making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B52 E21 J17 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hme, nep-mac and nep-pke
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