A Microeconometric Characterization of Household Consumption Using Quantile Regression

The paper uses cross-section micro data from the GfK consumer panel for an econometric demand analysis of households in Germany. Contrary to most research which considered quot;averagequot; behavior, we analyze consumer behavior for different quot;intensitiesquot; of consumption. Our analytical tool is quantile regression which allows us to describe the conditional distribution for any quantile including the (conditional) median representing quot;averagequot; behavior. As an illustrative example, we use the demand for beer and wine. The paper shows quite distinct patterns regarding price and income effects for light and heavy consumption, respectively, which leads to a better characterization of household demand