Collective Models of Household Consumption Behavior: Main Approaches to Formation and Areas of Use

The paper summarizes the international experience of modelling the decision-making process of households and the main areas of use of collective models of household consumption behavior. Unitary and non-unitary methodological approaches to the study of household consumption behavior are studied. According to the traditional, unitary, approach of microeconomic theory, households are considered as single decision-making units, as “consumers” in the usual sense, which are characterized by a single utility function that is maximized under certain budget constraints. This approach does not assume that household members can act and make decisions independently, in particular regarding the consumption of goods and services, or significantly influence such decisions of other household members; the peculiarities of the distribution of resources between household members are not taken into account. Against the background of the discussion about the shortcomings of the unitary model, scientists have proposed a non-unitary approach, which takes into account that household members may have their own preferences that differ from each other, and that decision-making processes in households are complex phenomena that deserve special attention. In Ukraine, a non-unitary approach in modelling the socio-economic behavior of households has not become widely used, thus to assess the relevance and possibility of its application on Ukrainian data, it is relevant to study international theoretical and empirical researches into the economic behavior of households in consuming goods and services, producing and consuming their own products, forming savings, making investments, etc., based on a collective approach. The main purpose of the article is to study the international experience of developing and using collective models of household consumption behavior and to determine the most relevant areas of their application. The theoretical basis of the study is the general methods of scientific inquiry, such as systematization and theoretical generalization, scientific abstraction, comparison, argumentation, analysis and synthesis, etc. The most relevant areas of application of collective models of household consumption behavior are the study of such issues as labour supply, consumption and savings, household production and distribution of goods among its members, the level of poverty, etc.