Appendix A: Data Sources | RDP 2009-07: Estimating Marginal Propensities to Consume in Australia Using Micro Data

RDP 2009-07: Estimating Marginal Propensities to Consume in Australia Using Micro Data Appendix A: Data Sources

Laura Berger-Thomson, Elaine Chung and Rebecca McKibbin

November 2009

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Column (I) in Table A1 shows the components we include in strictly non-durable expenditure. The categories in Column (II) are the additional components included in non-durable expenditure.

Table A1: Expenditure Items in the HILDA Survey
Non-durable
(I)	(II)
Strictly non-durable
Grocery	Clothing and footwear
Alcohol	Motor vehicle repairs and maintenance
Cigarettes and tobacco	Education fees
Public transport and taxis
Meals eaten out
Motor vehicle fuel
Telephone rent, calls and internet charges
Holidays and holiday travel
Private health insurance
Health care^(c)
Utility, gas and other heating bills
Notes: (a) In Waves 6 and 7, clothing and footwear was disaggregated into mens clothing and footwear, female clothing and footwear, and children's clothing and footwear. (b) Telephone rents and calls are reported excluding internet charges in Wave 5. Including internet charges in Wave 6 is about 80 dollars higher than Wave 5. Between Waves 6 and 7, the difference in the amount spent in telephone rent and calls (both including internet charges) is also around 80 dollars, suggesting that the internet component may be small. We ignore this difference in definition between Wave 5 and the other two waves. (c) In Waves 6 and 7, we add two components: fees paid to health practitioner; and medicines, prescriptions, pharmaceutical and alternative medicine, to form a measure of health care to resemble that reported in Wave 5. Source: HILDA Release 7.0 (in-confidence version)