Abstract: The expansion of domestic demand and financial liberalization are two important strategic orientations in China’s current economic activities. Is there any relationship between financial liberalization and household consumption? This paper makes use of the provincial panel data to study the impact of China’s financial liberalization on the household consumption volatility and its mechanism. The results indicate that: (1) financial liberalization would have threshold effect; (2) the capability of financial liberalization to stabilize household consumption volatility depends on the level of financial development in the provinces, the higher the level of financial development of the provinces, the stronger the capability of financial liberalization to stabilize household consumption volatility will be; and (3) financial liberalization can only alleviate the effect of nominal impact on consumption fluctuations, it cannot withstand any actual impact due to the asymmetry of capital account openness in China’s financial liberalization process. Thus, it can be seen that financial liberalization should be a process which need continuous promotion, unceasing deepening and balanced development; only up to a certain level and achieving balanced development, can a high-quality consumption growth be brought about.

Key words: financial liberalization; consumption volatility; threshold effect; exogenous shocks