Abstract
This article investigates the consumption patterns of black Americans for five different commodity groups: food, housing, clothing, health care, and transportation. The black consumer’s demand for these products is hypothesized as describable by the linear expenditure system. The system allows the investigation of changing relative commodity prices and income. The system also establishes a basic consumption bundle as an estimable parameter of the system. The basic bundle allows for changes in composition due to increased product familiarity, habit formation, and emulation by black consumers. Product familiarity and habit-formation play a role in determining the black consumer’s demand for the commodities food, housing, and clothing. This demand is also partially determined by the consumer’s “emulation” of consumption standards established by society in general. The article is not a comparison study of black-white differences in consumer behavior; however, the possible existence of an emulation effect in black consumer behavior suggests an interrelation of black-white consumer welfare which might fruitfully be studied by future researchers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Marcus Alexis, “Some Negro Differences in Consumption,” in Joyce and Govani (ed.),The Black Consumer, (New York: Random House, 1971); H.A. Bullock, “ Consumer Motivations in Black and White,” in Joyce and Govani,ibid.; Milton Friedman,A Theory of the Consumption Function, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975); M. Galenson,“ Do Blacks Save More?”American Economic Review, vol. 62, March 1972.
R.C. Greary, “A Note on ‘A Constant Utility Index of the Cost of Living.’”Review of Economic Studies, vol. 17, 1950–51; P.A. Samuelson,“ Some Implications of Linearity,Review of Economic Studies, vol. 18, 1948; J.R.N. Stone,“ Linear Expenditure Systems and Demand Analysis: An Application to the Pattern of British Demand,”Economic Journal, vol. 64, 1954.
A.S. Goldberger and T. Gamaletsos,“ A Cross Country Comparison of Consumer Expenditure Patterns,”European Economic Review, Spring 1970.
R.A. Pollack and J.T. Wales, “Estimation of the Linear Expenditure System,”Econometrica, vol. 37, 1969; R.A. Pollack,“ Habit Formation and Dynamic Demand Functions,”Journal of Political Economy, vol. 78, 1970; L. Philips,“ A Dynamic Version of the Linear Expenditure Model,”Review of Economics and Statistics, August 1972.
R.S. Wickstein, “Welfare Criteria and Changing Tastes,”American Economic Review, vol. 52, March 1962.
A.P. Barten, “Maximum Likelihood Estimates of a Complete System of Demand Equations,”European Economic Review, vol. 1, 1969; Jonathan Bard,“ Nonlinear Parameter Estimation and Programming,” IBM Contributed Program Library, 360D 13.6.003, 1967.
Bullock,op cit.
About this article
Cite this article
Milley, D.J. Consumer demand by Black Americans. Rev Black Polit Econ 15, 87–99 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02903994
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02903994