Consumption and the business cycle

Private consumption expenditure accounts for about two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP) in most developed countries, with the remaining one-third accounted for by business and government expenditures and net exports. A substantial portion of government expenditure (e.g., spending on public health programs) is also considered to be consumption expenditure, as it provides a service that consumers value.

In national income accounting, private consumption expenditure is divided into three broad categories: expenditures for services, for durable goods, and for nondurable goods. Durable goods are generally defined as those whose expected lifetime is greater than three years, and spending on durable goods is much more volatile than spending in the other two categories. Services include a broad range of items including telephone and utility service, legal and financial services, and travel and lodging services. Nondurable goods include food and other immediately perishable items (sometimes called “strictly nondurable goods”) as well as some items that can be expected to last for a substantial period of time, such as clothing.

The distinction between the flow of consumption as economists conceive it (including the services of durable goods owned by households) and consumption expenditure as measured in national income accounts is vital to understanding macroeconomic fluctuations. Producers (and therefore employers) make money only from the sale of a durable good, not from its continuing use after the sale. Therefore, it is the level of consumption expenditure—not the flow of consumption as defined above—that determines short-term macroeconomic prosperity (or otherwise).

Macroeconomists have accordingly extended the rational optimization framework to account for the “lumpy” nature of durable goods (i.e., a large purchase is made in a single moment, but its usefulness extends over a long period; one cannot buy 1/20 of a new automobile). Both theory and evidence suggest roughly the following story. In an economic downturn, expenditures on durable goods such as automobiles generally plummet because many consumers who had been considering replacement of their durable goods decide to hold off either until the economy improves or until their need to replace the durable good becomes sufficiently urgent. The early phase of economic recoveries generally exhibits a surge in spending on durable goods as this process is reversed. More broadly, spending on durable goods tends to be much more volatile than spending on nondurables and services, because all that is needed to induce a surge in durables spending is something that pushes consumers from merely contemplating a purchase to actually making a purchase. This logic explains why spending on durables is much more sensitive to interest rates, rebates, and other economic stimuli than are other kinds of spending.