On the relationships between socio-economic characteristics of consumers and their shopping behavior: a case study of Kukisaki- mura in Ibaraki prefecture.

Focuses on where consumers chose to buy specific goods. Measures the size of relationships between the characteristics of individual households and their shopping behavior, by using Hayashi's Quantification Theory-II. Shows the frequency of the use of transportation for purchasing eight goods. The greater both average and standard deviations of shopping distances were, the higher the order of shopping goods; the greater the variation of shopping trips, the lower the order of goods. The higher the order of shopping goods, the stronger the relationships between shopping behavior and household characteristics. The relationships between household characteristics and shopping behavior, however, were not explained by single characteristics but by intricate relationships among several characteristics. The variety of orientation to central places by the characteristics of households does not simply mean the difference in the rank of higher order central places, but the difference in a group of cities to which they are oriented.-from English summary