Abstract: Taking policy reforms around the sectors of education, health care and housing around 1998 as a dividing point, this paper analyzes the impact of public expenditure on household consumption with provincial panel data before and after the policy reforms by adopting the technique of quantile regression. The results show that educational, medical and administrative expenses and public investment expenditures have significantly different effects on household consumptions before and after the reforms whether from directions or changing trends. After the reforms, educational and medical expenditures are playing a role of restraining household consumptions, and this role is much obvious than before. The administrative expenses could restrain the household consumptions during some years before the reforms, while after the reforms they are promoting those consumptions to a larger degree. The public investment expenses have been playing a role of promoting household expenditures before and after the reforms, but the effects are weakening, the volatility after the reforms is much bigger than before.

Key words: policy reform; public expenditure; household consumption