Theories of Consumption – The Persistent Influence of Past Consumption on Present Consumption Patterns

Ever since it has been proclaimed “as the sole end and purpose of all production” consumption has been performing an essential role in economic theory. Although consumption was approached by economists prior to Keynes, it is only in his work that consumption gained its due importance, starting with the famous formulation of the psychological law. Subsequently, several other theories brought consumption to the centre of the economic research the most widely acknowledged being the contributions brought by James Duesenberry, Milton Friedman, Franco Modigliani and Richard Brumberg. The aim of this paper is to analyse some of the most important theories of consumption from the perspective of the past influences on current consumption patterns. The notion is certainly easy to assimilate at an intuitive level, it is present in the economic theory, and may be rather conveniently applied to consumption.