AngustWartdeaton (194510/0/0/0/9) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a microeconomic. He studied at FettesCollege in Edinburgh, where he was a foundation scholar and received his bachelor's, master's and doctor's degrees from Cambridge University. He showed great talent in measurement in Britain. His influence in the economics department of Princeton University is unparalleled. He is a world-class microeconomic bull of Princeton University (one of the twin towers of econometrics) and a former chairman of the American Economic Association (AEA). He has won numerous awards, including FrischMedal (awarded to the author of the best paper on econometrics in recent five years).

He is currently dwight david eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

20 15, 10, 12 won the 20 15 nobel prize in economics in recognition of his research contributions in consumption, poverty and welfare.

Chinese name: angus deaton.

Mbth: AngusDeaton

Nationality: UK, USA (dual nationality)

Place of birth: Edinburgh, Scotland

Date of birth: 1945 65438+ 10/9.

Occupation: professor, economist

Graduate school: Cambridge University

Main achievements: 20 15 nobel prize in economics.

Former chairman of the American Economic Association

Masterpiece: Economics and Consumer Behavior

Character experience

1945 65438+ 10/0 was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a microeconomic.

He studied at FettesCollege in Edinburgh, and was a basic scholar at FettesCollege in Edinburgh. He received his bachelor's, master's and doctor's degrees from Cambridge University, where he served as professor of applied economics, researcher and research director of Sir Richard Si Tong and Terry Buck fitzwilliam College.

From 1976 to 1983, he was a professor of econometrics at Bristol University, during which he did a lot of influential work.

1983 came to the United States from Britain to develop. 1983 has been teaching in the economics department of Princeton University.

Chairman of the Research Review Committee of the World Bank, 2005-2006.

From June 5 to 10, 2006, the International Monetary and Economic Organization visited Washington as a scholar.

In 2007, President of National Economic Association.

From June 5438 to February 2009, he served as the chairman of the advisory group of the Department of Economics of Harvard University.

At present, he is a DwightD D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Woodrow Wilson College and Department of Economics. Previously, he taught at Cambridge University and Bristol University.

20 1510/2 won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare (Forhisananalysis on Consumption, Poverty and Welfare). The Nobel Prize Selection Committee issued a statement saying that in order to design economic policies that can promote welfare and reduce poverty, it is first necessary to understand individual consumption choices, and Deaton's research has strengthened this understanding. His research changed microeconomics, macroeconomics and development economics by linking detailed individual choices with the results of aggregation.

201June/July 18, awarded honorary academician title by Bristol University.

research direction

Deaton studied the subtle relationship between money and happiness. Researchers surveyed 450,000 Americans from 2008 to 2009. Happiness can be divided into two categories: daily life satisfaction (emotional happiness) and overall "quality of life", that is, a person's overall satisfaction with his position in the world.

main work

Economics and consumer behavior, understanding consumption, household survey and analysis: microeconomic approach to development policy, greater India poverty debate.

CITIC Publishing House has published his book The Great Escape: The Origin of Health, Wealth and Inequality. The original English edition of Princeton University Press is The Great Escape: The Origin of Health, Wealth and Inequality.

school achievement

(A) family behavior research

Deaton's research on family behavior mainly focuses on the needs, consumption and savings of families and individuals. His iconic work is Economics and Consumer Behavior (1980a) co-authored with J.Muellbauer. In the book, Deaton comprehensively summarizes the research paradigm of consumer behavior and related issues, expounds the economic theory of consumer behavior and its role in economic analysis, and tries to make a reasonable explanation for the model construction and empirical test. By introducing the dual theory in the study of modern consumer behavior economics, this paper focuses on the application of this theory in welfare economics and econometric analysis. Later, they published a paper entitled "Almost Ideal Demand System" (1980b) in the American Economic Review. 20 1 1, this article was selected as the top 20 papers since American Economic Review 1970. Based on Si Tong's theory of consumer demand, this paper puts forward an AlmostIdealDemandSystem (AIDS) by using the function approximation method of Rotterdam expenditure model and logarithmic transformation model. In addition to the general characteristics of Rotterdam model and logarithmic transformation model, this model is very close to linearity and easy to estimate and predict. It can give a first-order approximation to any demand system, has a function form consistent with the known family budget data, and can better meet the consumer axiom of choice. AIDS provides a tool to measure consumers' reaction to price and income, so it is widely used in economic analysis, such as explaining welfare economics, the consumption effect of government purchases, the formulation and influence of various policies, etc. , with strong practicality and policy orientation. Later, this system was called Deton-Milbauer system, and now it has become the standard of empirical analysis of consumer demand.

Deaton also made an important contribution to the study of savings behavior. He and his collaborator (Deatonetal, 1985) introduced the method of constructing real panel data with cross-sectional time series when studying intertemporal savings and labor supply. This article and subsequent research are widely cited and used. According to Keynes's consumption theory, it has always been believed that the phenomenon that consumption trend is less than income trend is determined by lasting income rather than current income, and lasting income is smoother than current income. During 1987, many time series analysts found that the average personal income in the United States and other places was a positive first-order autoregressive unit root process. Deaton believes that if this conclusion is correct, the unit impact on labor income will be transformed into a huge impact on lasting income. Then the prediction of the persistent income hypothesis is not that consumption is smoother than income (the result of data display), but that income is smoother than consumption. Is the life cycle model of consumption consistent with the evidence? (1987) Test the validity of the life cycle model that affects consumer behavior. Through the simple nonparametric test of the representative proxy model of consumption and labor supply, as well as the study of the time series characteristics of disposable income and the simplification of consumption behavior based on the hypothesis of life cycle model, Deaton points out that lasting income is more unstable than current income. As for why consumption is smoother than income, the theory of sustainable income cannot provide a direct and widely accepted explanation, so the smoothing of consumption cannot be directly explained by the theory of sustainable income. Why is Deaton spending so steady? (withJ。 Campbell, 1989), from the perspective of total consumption, this paper constructs a biVARiate var model of savings and labor income by analyzing the changing law of quarterly consumption data in the United States, and tests R.Hall's randomwalk hypothesis. The results show that lasting income is actually not smoother than current income. Compared with the consumption function form in the continuous income hypothesis, the fluctuation of consumption expenditure calculated from the actual consumption data is smaller, the household consumption does not change synchronously with the income change as described in the theoretical hypothesis, and the response of household consumption to income shock is too smooth. Deaton called this consumption phenomenon that the actual consumption is less than the theoretical estimated value "excessive smoothness" of consumption. Deaton believes that the changing trend of consumption expenditure is less than that of income, and consumption shows amazing stability. It can also be expressed that in time series data, the change of consumption is positively correlated with expected income, and it is insensitive (excesssensitivity smooth) to unpredictable income. This theory was later called "Deaton Paradox".

Deaton's other two articles on savings also had a great influence on later related research. Onbufferstocksaving (Deaton, 199 1) describes a static equilibrium, that is, consumers can save without borrowing money, and they have assets that can be consumed smoothly in a short time, but they have not accumulated a lot of wealth. When consumers are relatively impatient and labor income is distributed independently over time, assets play a role in buffering inventory and protecting consumption from income reduction. If the income process is positively correlated and fixed, then assets can still be used to buffer consumption. When labor income is a process of random walk, it is the best consumption relative to its income for impatient consumers with limited liquidity. Another article (Deaton &; Paxson, 1994) discusses the relationship among intertemporal selection, insurance premium and inequality. They believe that intertemporal selection models, such as those with strong preventive motives and liquidity constraints, can not only limit or even prevent the spread of inequality, but also share personal risks. This article has spawned many studies on consumer insurance in the field of macroeconomics, although there are still many differences in these studies.

199 1 year, Deaton was invited to give an academic report at CalLondon College, Oxford University. He took this opportunity to integrate his own and other scholars' research on consumption, and published the monograph Understanding Consumption (1992) the following year. This book introduces economists' understanding of consumption from 65438 to the early 1990s, and points out that in the field of consumption research, empirical research and theoretical research have always been combined, and most of the research is obviously based on the rational decision-making of micro-individuals, constrained by the constraints of specific periods in the life cycle, and characterized by high-tech models and data collection and processing.

(2) Research on economic development and price fluctuation.

In the1980s, Deaton gradually turned his research direction to economic development, and used household survey data to explain various development policy issues. While teaching at Princeton University, he joined the Research Programmable Development Studies of Princeton University and established a team interested in development issues, making Princeton one of the main bases for research and development issues. Through his work in the World Bank, Deaton contributed to the design of living standard survey, and thus obtained household survey data in many countries. Deaton used these data and other data to carry out many influential studies, such as intra-family discrimination in resource allocation between boys and girls, differences in quality and quantity effects when estimating price elasticity of demand, economies of scale and food consumption. In his book Household Survey Analysis: Micro-econometric Methods of Development Policy (1997), he systematically introduced the analysis methods of household survey data, including the construction of household survey, applicable econometric analysis tools and a series of development policy problems arising from it. Deaton pointed out that household survey can not only provide information about various economic variables affected by policies, such as prices, but also be a data source for studying related economic behaviors and economic policies. He used this method to analyze the policy issues of several developing countries and regions, such as C? te d 'Ivoire, India, Pakistan, Thailand and Taiwan Province Province. Deaton (20 10a) believes that the quantity and validity of household survey data are gradually improving. These surveys not only provide data on household income and expenditure, but also provide data on self-reported health indicators, especially anthropometry, infant mortality, well-being and emotional experience. At the same time, the concept of economic development has also expanded from a single real income growth to include health and well-being. Economic development is different from most economic research fields because it involves the study of low-income economies and people living in low-income economies. The particularity of economic development research may make it closer to the research field of labor economics or health economics.

At present, scholars still have many differences on the effectiveness of foreign aid and what kind of projects can bring about economic development, and there are also many doubts about whether econometric analysis can solve these problems and whether relevant development departments can learn from their own experiences and lessons. Nowadays, development economics increasingly uses random control variables and instrumental variables to accumulate reliable knowledge about how to develop the economy. Deaton (20 10b) pointed out that data processing is ineffective due to improper handling of exogenous and heterogeneity. He believes that compared with other methods, experiments do not have the special ability to generate more credible information, and real experiments are often affected by practical problems, thus affecting the role of statistics or other cognition. Just like instrumental variable technology, because it is impossible to really understand the inherent law of economic development based on the estimation of randomized controlled trials, the current research should turn more to the evaluation of the theoretical mechanism of economic development. Deaton (20 10c) emphasized that a good theory or the perfection of existing theory needs theoretical workers to be familiar with and pay attention to historical and empirical evidence. In order to understand development, we need to study the mechanism that affects development. The investigation, test and evaluation of this mechanism can integrate different empirical results and form a gradual empirical research strategy. At the same time, he discussed some key issues that can explain the development mechanism, such as the relationship between savings and development and the influence of commodity prices. Deaton believes that the most commonly used methods to solve these problems include logical positivism hypothesis deduction, auxiliary variable method and random experiment method.

In addition, Deaton also pays attention to the price fluctuation of commodities and its impact on major producing countries. He He and G. Laroche once analyzed the theoretical and empirical behavior of commodity prices in the article "Research on Commodity Price Behavior" (1992), pointing out that commodity prices are extremely unstable. And compete for survival with standard rational expectations.

The storage model explains the skewness of commodity prices, the sharp fluctuation of prices and the price autocorrelation in most cases. They have written several cooperative papers (Deaton &; Laroque, 1992, 1996a, 1996b) investigated the standard model of speculative storage of commodity prices, and thought that global commodity prices had a far-reaching impact on the economies of many poorest countries in the world (mainly but not limited to Africa), thus affecting the price behavior. Although the article 1992 has become a theory, which has had a great influence on related research, the follow-up research shows that the theory can not explain the actual data well. Deaton has always been interested in purchasing power parity (PPP). Deaton (1995) once questioned that according to ThePennWorldTablesMark5 of the World Bank, the GDP of China and India at purchasing power parity proposed by the World Bank was 2.7 1 times that of India in the same period. However, according to ThePennWorldTableMark 4 of the World Bank, the result is 3.26 times.

In addition, based on Lewis's price model, Deaton & laroche (2003) put forward a time series statistical model of commodity prices, and assumed that the supply of commodities in the model is infinitely elastic in the long run, and the supply growth rate changes with the difference between the current price and the long-term supply price, and the commodity price is fixed at the supply price. Through this model, they explain that the price will change with the change of income in the short term, but in the long run, the price is unchanged relative to income. In addition, Deaton et al. (Deaton &; Heston, 20 10) also studied the price index. They pointed out that because the national price index calculated by ICP does not show the income differences among countries, the rural prices of ICP are either not collected or not representative of some important countries such as China, Brazil and India. Therefore, it is unconvincing to compare the income difference between big countries and small countries by price. Deaton also tried to study the reasons for the fluctuation of world commodity prices, but it has not been successful.

(3) Research on poverty, health and well-being.

Before Deaton, he mainly made econometric analysis on microeconomic phenomena such as income, savings and prices. Later, his research focused on the determinants of poverty, health and happiness.

(1) poverty research

Since the mid-1980s, in addition to paying attention to economic development, Deaton has also devoted himself to the study of poverty measurement, especially how to adjust the standard income according to the spatial price difference, and the impact of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate on global poverty and inequality. Deaton (2005) believes that the calculation method of poverty defined by the World Bank is a simple statistic of the number of people living below $65,438 +0 per day. Although this method is simple and transparent, it is not practical. Deaton and his collaborators (Deaton, 2010d; ; Deaton Corp. Dupriez, 20 1 1) proposed to calculate the international price difference by purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate to compare the living standards of people in different countries. Due to the frequent adjustment of PPP exchange rate index, PPP exchange rate index is uncertain in measuring poverty, and the revised exchange rate index has not greatly changed the actual poverty situation. Deaton (20 10d) thinks that the sharp increase of the poverty population (nearly10 billion) is caused by the improper setting of the global poverty line, and the currently used ICP updating procedure is not perfect, which will lead to the decline of the national poverty line and the increase of the global poverty line. Based on the data of theGallupWorldPoll, Deaton also pointed out that when using international data, especially when comparing the situation of rich and poor countries, we should be skeptical about the data used, because the difference of data will lead to very different results. Deaton believes that there are two different ways to set the global poverty line in the future: one is the poverty line widely used at present, based on poor countries, such as the poverty line of India 1 rupee, or the average poverty line of poor countries around the world. Although these poverty lines will not change over time, the constant revision of the international comparison program has changed the relative purchasing power parity of these poor countries, and the global poverty line will inevitably change accordingly. The other is based on the international poverty line of 1 USD per person per day in rich countries, which is also the method agreed by Deaton, only updated according to the CPI of the United States. Since most NGOs and international organizations in developed countries use the standard of 1 USD per day, the poverty line measured in USD is more acceptable.

In addition, Deaton also studied poverty in India. Based on the argument that India1990s is "unprecedented improvement of living standards" or "widespread poverty", Deaton et al. Dreze, 2002) reconsidered the poverty incidence and other poverty index standards according to the per capita ratio, that is, the proportion of people below the poverty line, and using the survey data of NSS (National Poverty Survey) in India. They pointed out that during the three reference periods (1987- 1988, 1993- 1994 and 1999-2000), the poverty rate in most states showed a continuous downward trend. The revised poverty estimate is consistent with per capita expenditure, national output and actual agricultural wages. By analyzing the NSS data of 1993- 1994 and 1999-2000, they think that the inequality in India showed an obvious upward trend in the 1990' s, and the economic inequality among States, especially between urban areas and urban and rural areas, expanded. Specifically, the per capita expenditure varies greatly from state to state, especially in southern and western India; The gap between urban and rural per capita expenditure has increased; In most states, inequality within cities is also increasing. By studying the impact of development indicators such as health and education on poverty, they also found that social progress in different fields is also unbalanced. Progress in some areas can be accelerated, but progress in other areas may slow down or even decline. There is no reliable evidence to show whether India in the 1990s was "unprecedented progress" or "widespread poverty". Further, in the article withV. Kozel (2005), Deaton explained the interaction between political and statistical factors in this great debate on poverty in India, and pointed out that although there is no census data to provide evidence, there are enough facts to show that: on the one hand, the number of poor people in India has indeed decreased; On the other hand, the Indian government is too optimistic about the decline in the incidence of poverty, especially in rural areas. This paper also involves the design of effective questionnaire, reporting period, non-response survey, improvement of survey data, setting of poverty line and other related issues.

A series of household survey data from NSS are usually used to measure poverty in India, but many scholars have questioned the survey results, the poverty line used by the Indian government and the consumer price index for calculating poverty in India. Deaton (2008a) used NSS food data to compare the official price index of India with the consumer price index (CPIAL) of Indian agricultural workers and CPI il of Indian industrial workers. He found that the setting of the poverty line was indeed affected by possible errors in inflation measurement. Like many other countries, the problem of poverty measurement in India has long been affected by the opacity between unresolved survey data and national accounts.

(2) Research on health problems

Health problem is a very new research field. Although the research in this field has developed rapidly, it is still impossible to fully estimate its impact on economics, health and epidemiology. In recent years, most of Deaton's work has focused on the study of health status, mortality and their relationship with economic conditions. Deaton's research in this field has shaken some traditional views. For example, he presented a convincing evidence that "inequality will not harm health". In many welfare economics, income is an important indicator to measure personal welfare, and health can not only be used as an indicator to measure the quality of life, but also an important factor in one's own welfare. Health can promote happiness, so can income. It is generally believed that residents' health status is related to their income, but experiments have proved that this correlation is far from perfect (Deaton &: Paxson,1998; Deaton Corp. Lubotsky, 2003). Deaton (1999) studied the model of income inequality and health, and thought that income inequality would not directly harm health, but with the expansion of income inequality, the increase of personal income played an increasingly obvious role in reducing mortality. However, these results do not mean that policy changes that affect income inequality will definitely have an impact on the overall mortality rate. Through the study of human height, health and development, Deaton (2007) pointed out that there is only a weak connection between income and height-in some cases, it is even uncertain. Therefore, a person's height is an unreliable indicator to measure the standard of living. Diseases, especially childhood diseases, are an important factor in the study of health problems. Deatonetal。 (2009) built a model about developmental delay and choice, which provided a new way to understand the influence of early childhood health on adult mortality.

In addition, Deaton (20 1 1) believes that whether health inequality as an important moral problem needs to be corrected through policies depends on how health inequality is generated. By investigating the health inequality related to education, income and status differences, the huge health difference between rich and poor countries and the relationship between income inequality and health, he pointed out that childhood inequality is the key to understanding these problems, and public intervention can play a role in improving the bad family environment that affects children's future. For adults, priority should be given to taking measures to prevent them from becoming poor due to illness, inability to work or high treatment costs. Deaton thinks it is wrong to label the biggest health inequality-the unhealthy situation in poor countries as international injustice. To some extent, individuals, countries and the international community have the responsibility to help those individuals and groups who are in the worst health condition and extremely poor in material resources. This judgment should be based on common humanity, not international justice.

Deaton also analyzed the health problems of people in the United States and some developing countries such as India and South Africa. Deaton et al (Deaton &; Lubotsky, 2003) analyzes the relationship between mortality and income inequality from the perspective of American racial composition. They pointed out that where there are more blacks, the income inequality between groups is more obvious and the mortality rate is higher. This is not only because of the interaction between the high mortality rate and low income of black groups, but also because the mortality rate of whites is higher in areas with high black distribution. For developing countries, such as India and South Africa, Deaton and others (Deaton & ampCase, 2006) compared the health status of the two peoples and the relationship between health and income, and explored the hypothesis that "the healthier, the happier". Research shows that health status will change automatically with economic development. If the per capita GDP is used to measure the health status of the people in India and South Africa, then the health status of the people in South Africa is relatively low relative to the income level because of AIDS, and the life expectancy of its population is also shorter than that of India. Even if AIDS is not considered, from the perspective of income, the life expectancy of South Africans is shorter than expected, mainly because of the serious income inequality in South Africa.

(3) Research on happiness

Generally speaking, the survey of people's life satisfaction will provide some direct and easy-to-collect indicators related to happiness information, such as economic status, health status, family environment and so on. Deaton's research on this issue is mainly aimed at the relationship between income and happiness, that is, the enduring topic of "whether happiness can be bought with money". Deaton systematically expounded the relationship between them in the article "High income improves life evaluation but does not improve emotional well-being" (20 10) co-authored with Nobel Prize winner D.Kahneman. They pointed out that as two aspects of subjective well-being, emotional well-being refers to the emotional characteristics that a person experiences every day, that is, happiness, tension, sadness and unhappiness. Life evaluation refers to people's thoughts on their own lives. Traditional subjective well-being surveys generally emphasize life evaluation, especially the survey of people's life satisfaction. By analyzing more than 450,000 questionnaires of the Gallup-Healthy Road Happiness Index, they also found that it would affect emotional happiness.