Beyond a neoclassical approach to household spending: Combination Modes theory

Abstract

We use the ‘Combination Modes’ theory developed by Taplin (1989a), which claims that economic behaviour must be understood in terms of composite patterns of three ‘modes’: work, kinship, and ethnicity. We use data from a recent household survey in Bombay and Madras, to study spending on three types of time-saving food purchases: restaurant spending by husbands and by wives, and spending on ‘convenience’ foods. We find that a woman’s employment tends to increase her spending in restaurants, but not her household’s expenditure on convenience foods. We detect differences in spending patterns between nuclear and extended families. And we observe that descendants of immigrants from England, Portugal, and the Middle East appear to behave differently to the other residents of Bombay and Madras. We argue that these results offer support for the Combination Modes theory, and that this theory helps us to go beyond neoclassical economics, to give a more complete understanding of household behaviour.