On September 30, 2011, Economic Research Journal: speciall issue for consumer finance & the 2nd China Consumer Finance Seminar was held in School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University. The seminar was co-sponsored by the China Center for Financial Research of Tsinghua University, the editorial department of Economic Research Journal and the Citigroup Foundation. More than 100 delegates from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, institutes and universities home and abroad were invited to the discussion.

Professor Liao Li, who is the vice president of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University and China Center for Financial Research, representing the organizers gave all guests a warm welcome. He pointed out that the seminar was based on the domestic consumer finance development environment and trying to promote consumer finance research in China. Papers received in the 2nd consumer finance seminar were greatly improved both in quantity and quality compared to last year’s. Pei Changhong, president of Economic Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the chief director of Economic Research Journal, and Xiao Jingjian, a professor at University of Rhode Island and the chief editor of Journal of Family and Economic Issues, delivered their speeches separately.

Mr. Pei first affirmed the consumer finance seminar’s leading position and significance in China. Then he analyzed systematically the change trend of demand structure of our country. He indicated it was a long process to improve domestic consumption demand. We are still in the stage of industry finance and we need to optimize the investment structure and develop the third industry. He also points out that catching up with the economy of western country whose consumption contributes 80% is still a vision. Besides that, he also predicted China's consumption rate might be as low as that of last year due to the financial crisis and the European debt crisis. He presented how to explain the transformation of economic development mode from the aspects of guideline, content, purpose and motive mechanism in detail at last.

Professor Xiao pointed out that consumer financial behavior, as an interdisciplinary field of study, began to gain emphasis from mainstream economics and finance in the last ten years. He gave a brief review about consumer financial behavior research in USA from the aspects of how to define, describe, understand, predict, change and compare consumer financial behavior. He also explained the relationship between consumer financial behavior