Euromonitor International has been providing market analyses, forecasts, company profiles and statistical data for over 30 years. This edition of World Consumer Spending is the seventh of what was formerly called World Consumer Expenditure Patterns. It is manifestly a specialist resource for commercial and business libraries rather than the general reference shelves, for apart from a fairly dense introductory section covering the scope of the work, an exhaustive glossary of terms, and a brief note on sources and methodology, World Consumer Spending consists of 413 A4‐sized pages of tabulated figures, most pages featuring a matrix of 71 countries (y‐axis) and ten columns of expenditure figures by year (x‐axis). The print is small yet adequate. It is not a work for the faint‐hearted, but it is a treasure‐trove for economists and market analysts. Once in the economic mindset, the wealth of detail is staggering. Expenditure on telecommunications equipment in China has risen from US$2,730 million in 1990 to US$3,058.7 million in 2005. In the UK, it fell in the year 2004‐2005. France and Japan spend about the same on tobacco in 2005, Germany and the UK more, and the USA by far the most with over $100 billion. Figures throughout are for 1990, 1995, 1998‐2005 (and not 2006‐2007 as suggested by the book's title!).
A preliminary section features national socio‐economic indicators such as population, household occupancy, annual rates of inflation and GDP. Another section tabulates consumer expenditure by a broad commodity category (namely, durables, semi‐durables, non‐durables, and services). Section four, “Consumer expenditure by purpose”, is the largest section, featuring 170 tabulations of specific commodities by country and date. Broad categories are: food, beverages (alcoholic and non‐alcoholic), tobacco, clothing and footware, housing, household goods and services, health goods and medical services, communications, leisure and recreation, education, hotels and catering, miscellaneous goods and services, and travel. Section five gives “Country snapshots”, tables for each of the 71 countries covered, from Algeria to Vietnam. The “snapshots” are rather large in the case of the developed economies, with details of socio‐economic parameters, consumer price indices, and consumer expenditure for the specific commodities and services hitherto featured separately.
One can but marvel at the industry and careful editing that has gone into producing this statistical heavyweight, though such industry does not come cheap!
