The first essay uses Chinese Urban Household Survey (CUHS) data from 1988 to 2003 to conduct a cohort analysis of household income, household consumption, and household saving rate, and then uses synthetic panel data to explore the determinants of household saving rate. The cohort analysis not only offers stylized patterns of age profiles on household income, household consumption, and household saving rate but also their profiles of cohort effect and age effect by decomposition work. The cohort analysis likewise tests the relation between cohort effect and productivity growth. Overall, the empirical results present a different pattern compared with other studies and also contradict with the general predictions of the standard model in the consumption theory. In investigating the determinants of household saving rate, this essay examines the roles of household income, economic growth rate, inflation rate, and demographic variables, especially from the perspective of income inequality and systematic difference among cohorts. / The second essay examines the existence of a precautionary saving motive due to labor income uncertainty, using CUHS data from 2002 to 2003. Methodologically, this essay adopts a novel method to construct the proxy for labor income uncertainty, by the ratio of infra-group dispersion conditional on the individuals' labor income determinants to labor income. The empirical results present robust evidence that labor income uncertainty negatively affects household consumption, and there exists obviously different responses to labor income uncertainty from three perspectives: between old households and young households, among different households whose household heads are in different occupations, and between households whose household heads work in the State-owned Units and their counterparts. / The third essay then attempts to explore the determinants of housing wealth and housing price by a hedonic pricing model and evaluate the housing wealth effect on household consumption behavior. For the determinants of housing wealth and housing price, this essay demonstrates that incomplete property rights depress the value of housing asset by both a theoretical model and the empirical results. Regarding housing wealth's effect on household consumption behavior, the empirical results show that the housing wealth effect is significant and that it is obviously smaller for those observations whose houses' property rights are incomplete, compared with their counterparts. / Zhou, Shaojie. / "August 2007." / Advisers: Jun Sen Zhang; Hong bin Li. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0704. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-222). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.