An application of demand theory in projecting New Zealand retail consumption

Abstract

The increasing emphasis on economic planning in recent years has made it important that planners and policy-makers should know, or at least have some idea of, the likely future courses of leading economic variables. This paper is a study of retail trading in New Zealand and its object is to explain, and produce projections of, domestic consumption of certain commodity groups at the retail level, and also for all groups as a whole. The individual commodity groups, chosen on grounds of general interest, data availability and computational feasibility, are called (1) meat, (2) other food, (3) apparel, (4) household operation and (5) miscellaneous. Point projections and tolerance limits in both real and current value terms are given for 1970 and 1975 for each individual group and for the aggregate of the groups. Some short-term forecasts are also given to show the possible usefulness of the projection method in this direction.