Investigating the impact consumer confidence on household consumption expenditures: The case of Malatya province

Consumer confidence indices are regarded as economic indicators that reflect consumers' feelings about the economy. Consumer spending is affected by consumer confidence as well as macroeconomic indicators. In the literature, there are research findings explaining consumer confidence indices' consumption expenditures, apart from results indicating that there is no relation between them. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of consumer confidence in explaining consumption expenditures. The second important aim is to adapt the five basic survey questions in the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index to Turkish and to conduct validity and reliability studies. The population of the study consists of 174,553 households in the central districts of Malatya province. The sample of the study consists of 598 household members aged 18 and older selected by convenience sampling method in the central districts. Descriptive statistics calculations, t-test for independent groups, one-way (ANOVA) and correlation analysis were tested to analyse the data obtained by the survey application method in the study. According to the study findings, no significant relation was detected between consumer confidence and per capita consumption expenditure. A high positive significant relation was detected between per capita total income and per capita consumption expenditure (r=.71). In addition, it was determined that the Consumer Confidence Scale adapted within the scope of the research was valid and reliable and could be used in future studies. Keywords: Behavioral economics, Scale adaptation, Consumer confidence, Consumption expenditures.