Petrol Price Cycles

This article provides an overview of the burgeoning academic literature on price dynamics and price cycles in retail petrol markets. I first present evidence of petrol price cycles and studies that describe what types of petrol markets tend to exhibit price cycles. I further discuss empirical investigations of firms’ pricing strategies in cycling markets. In light of the empirics, I outline theories of competition and consumer demand in petrol markets that help us understand various facets of petrol price cycles.     

The demand for imports: Estimates of bilateral trade flows

This paper provides estimates, using a traditional import demand model, of the demand for imports on a bilateral basis among nine industrialized nations. These estimates provide greater detail about price and income elasticities, but in general are consistent with earlier, aggregate import demand studies with respect to conclusions about the effects of secular and cyclical income changes on trade balances and whether sufficiently high price elasticities are present to insure that the Marshall-Lerner stability condition is met.     

Attendance and pricing at sporting events: empirical results from Granger Causality Tests for the Melbourne Cup

This study applies Granger causality tests to examine the relationship between attendance, admission prices and real income at the Melbourne Cup, which is Australia’s premier horseracing event and one of the world’s leading handicap races. The motivation for the paper is that while market demand suggests that causation should run from admission price to attendance, it is equally plausible that sporting authorities could alter admission prices in response to a change in demand reflected in attendance. The main findings are that in the short-run there is unidirectional Granger causality running from income to attendance, attendance to admission price and income to admission price, while in the long run both admission price and income Granger cause attendance.     

Housing Prices in Urban China as Determined by Demand and Supply

This paper studies the demand for and supply of residential housing in urban China since the late 1980s when the urban housing market became commercialized. Using aggregated annual data from 1987 to 2012 in a simultaneous equations framework we show that the rapid increase in the urban residential housing price can be well explained by the forces of demand and supply, with income determining demand and cost of construction affecting supply. We find the income elasticity of demand for urban housing to be approximately 1, the price elasticity of demand to be approximately ?1.1 and the price elasticity of supply of the total housing stock to be approximately 0.5. The resulting long‐run effect of income on urban housing prices in elasticity terms is approximately 0.7, because the increase in income has shifted the demand curve outward more rapidly than the supply curve.     

Income and price elasticities of electricity demand in Australia: Evidence of state‐specific heterogeneity

This paper estimates country‐wide and state‐level income and price elasticities of electricity demand in Australia for the period 1999Q1–2013Q2 using the National Electricity Market data and the autoregressive‐distributed lag model. The results suggest that the long‐run income and price elasticities are inelastic and are statistically significant with theoretically consistent signs. The country‐wide income and price elasticities are estimated to be 0.41 and ?0.38, respectively. It is also found that there exists state‐specific heterogeneity in both speed and magnitude of the electricity consumption adjustment in response to changes in income and electricity price. These results have important policy implications, including the need to use state‐specific elasticities in the scenario analysis of the energy pricing policy.     

中国货币需求稳定性的实证研究--基于1994-2005年的协整分析

本文以经济改革和金融发展为背景,从经典货币需求理论分析出发,运用协整检验和误差校正模型对我国货币需求的稳定性问题展开研究.分析结果显示,货币需求、国民收入、利率和通货膨胀率之间存在协整关系;我国货币需求主要受收入因素影响而呈现出长期稳定性特征,长期稳定的货币需求对其即期增长的抑制作用不明显,货币需求函数表现出高收入弹性和低利率弹性,而利率的外生性削弱了货币需求对利率的调节作用;基于VEC模型的短期Granger因果检验,支持货币量、利率和货币政策最终目标之间短期均衡关系的存在.     

Kalman filter and the demand for cigarettes

kalman filter estimates of price, income and advertising elasticities are presented. An analysis of structural change in the demand for cigarettes in the US for the period 1929–86 is made. Estimated price and income elasticities are generally smaller, and the advertising elasticity larger, than estimates previously found. Cigarette demand is inelastic with respect to price and income, and advertising elasticity is statistically insignificant for the most part. Furthermore, both income and price elasticities decline over time while advertising elasticity tends to rise. Four time periods where structural change has occurred are identified. The health scare reports and the Fairness Doctrine Act have a significant impact on per capita cigarette consumption.     

Demand for ground transportation fuels in 10 Asian countries: An application of the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach

This study applies the recently developed autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to investigate demands for gasoline and diesel in the ground transportation sectors of 10 Asian countries from 1983 to 2013. Results reveal an inelastic fuel demand with respect to price, except in Hong Kong. This relation implies that the government is unable to limit fuel consumption by controlling price. Moreover, fuel demand with respect to income is generally greater than price elasticity. In other words, if the growth of the national income is faster than that of fuel price, fuel consumption will continually increase. Long‐term income elasticity is greater than unity in half of the examined countries. The demand for transportation fuel in these countries is expected to grow at a rate faster than the growth of GDP over a wide range of economies in Asia, with the implication that the concern regarding the scarcity of fossil fuel is not misplaced.     

The effects of resale price maintenance laws on petrol prices and station attrition: empirical evidence from Wisconsin

The state of Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act prevents the sale of any item below cost in order to attract business, and specifically requires petrol (gasoline) stations to mark up their prices by at least 6% over the wholesale price. While the ostensible reason for this law is to protect small, independent retailers and thus enhance competition, the evidence suggests that the primary result of this law has been to inflate the price of petrol for Wisconsin consumers and facilitate tacit collusion in retail petrol markets. Petrol prices in two major markets in the state are examined, as well as in one market outside of the state where no minimum markup is required. The data show that when the penalties for violating the Unfair Sales Act were strengthened, the average markup of retail petrol over the wholesale price increased significantly in Wisconsin without a commensurate change in the average markup in the market outside of Wisconsin. It is also found that price dispersion is significantly lower over a two-year period in the protected Wisconsin market than in the unprotected markets.     

The household demand for energy and fuels in OECD countries

This paper estimates the household demand for energy and fuels. The linear expenditure model is estimated using data from eight OECD countries over a period of sixteen years. The basic similarities in household demand for fuels and the differences among OECD countries are discussed. The results indicate that household demand for energy is highly income dependent. With regard to four basic fuels, the income and price elasticities for gasoline and gas are higher than for either coal or oil. The demand patterns are shown to differ significantly among groups of OECD countries. Coal has been gradually replaced by oil as the major household fuel in OECD countries, whereas the demand pattern for gas has changed only a little during the fifties and sixties.     

中国大中城市房地产需求弹性地区差异的实证分析

房地产需求价格弹性和收入弹性是反映房地产市场需求特征的两个主要指标.国外在这方面的研究比较充分,而我国学术界对房地产需求弹性的测算和解释仍缺乏系统研究.本文通过对我国35个大中城市房地产需求弹性的实证研究,结果发现我国房地产需求弹性的特征是:(1)房地产需求价格弹性总体上缺乏弹性,而收入弹性是富有弹性.(2)房地产需求弹性具有显著的地区差异性.因此,我国的房地产业政策,必须根据房地产市场的地区差异性而进行调整,在增加房地产有效供给而满足人们房地产消费需求的同时,打击房地产投机需求,适当抑制房地产投资需求.     

Rationality of liquidity preferences and the neoclassical monetary growth model

In the neoclassical monetary growth literature, the rationality condition in the sense of freedom from money illusion is imposed on the demand for nominal balances by assuming that this demand is homogenous of degree one in nominal income and nominal wealth. We argue that the price level should enter into this demand as a separate argument, and that the rationality condition should require that the demand be homogenous of degree one in nominal income, nominal wealth, and the price level. Then, the symmetry issue of the real purchasing power is consequential to the structure of the neoclassical monetary growth model.     

A generalization to QUAIDS

Previous research shows that consumers’ response to price and income changes is heterogeneous. In addition, evidence from national data often does not support the classical assumption of one commodity-one price. This paper introduces a data coherent generalization to the quadratic form of the almost ideal demand system (g-QUAIDS) that incorporates the sources of heterogeneity in the demand function and allows for regional price variation. Aggregation over consumers imposes a linearization to the g-QUAIDS that requires a new set of price indices. The results from an empirical study by using microdata from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of Iran highlight the impact of aggregation bias in relation to the level of aggregation. An investigation of the predictive power of linear versus nonlinear g-QUAIDS in different aggregation levels provides practical recommendations for consumer demand analysis.     

Welfare and Distribution Effects of Water Pricing Policies

In this paper, distribution and welfare effects of changes in block price systems are evaluated. A method is discussed to determine, for a Marshallian demand function, equivalent variation in case of a block price system. The method is applied to compare, for the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, alternative pricing policies on the basis of their demand, welfare and distribution effects of changing water prices. Results show that there is a trade off between average welfare and income distribution. A pro-poor price system may result in lower average welfare than a flat price system, but in higher individual welfare for the poor. Moreover, there is a trade off between revenues for the water company and income distribution. Even though pro-poor price systems may not be as good for average welfare as flat price systems, their direct effects on poverty are important. Introducing pro-poor price systems, however, may have financial consequences for the water companies.     

Demand for education in China

Abstract

This paper offers an explanation of the quantitative changes in education spending by the framework of demand analysis, including the changes in the ratio of educational funding to GDP in the period 1991–2002. The income effect is estimated mainly by using cross-provincial data, while time series data are used to estimate the price effect. Changes in government and non-government spending through time can be satisfactorily explained by the income and price effects. Demand for education services in the three levels of primary school, secondary school and higher education, and aggregate demand for all education services are investigated. The relation between income inequality and inequality in education opportunities is briefly discussed. Ten important findings are stated.     

The response of aggregate demand to income,money supply,and price level

The response elasticities of (nominal) aggregate demand to the price level and to other nominal variables (e.g., money supply) are both positive but smaller than one. Aggregate demand is less/as responsive to real income than/as to the price level in the short/long run. Real aggregate demand is less/as responsive to real income than/as nominal aggregate demand is to the price level in the short/long run. Some uses of these results are indicated.     

Determinants of food consumption in rural Sierra Leone: Application of the quadratic expenditure system to the consumption-leisure component of a household-firm model

This paper reports the application of a quadratic expenditure system with demographic variables to the household consumption-leisure choice component of a household-firm model. A system of seven commodities is estimated: including five foods, non-food and leisure. Appropriate for such a level of disaggregation a demand system is used, the Quadratic Expenditure System, which allows for a flexible relationship between full income and commodity expenditures without sacrificing parsimony in parameters. Demographic data on households are explicitly incorporated into the model allowing for a richer specification than can be achieved by using per capita variables. The data are from a cross-section survey of households in rural Sierra Leone. Price variation exists by region, permitting estimation of a complete demand system. Engel curves are found to be significantly non-linear, with marginal expenditure on rice, the major staple, declining with higher income. Most foods are found to be reasonably price responsive with sizeable own price substitution effects, declining with higher income. Aggregate labor supply is found to be price inelastic.     

Long-run estimates of money demand: new evidence from East Asian countries and the presence of structural breaks

Conventionally, the money demand function is estimated using a linear regression of the logarithm of money demand on a number of variables. In this article, we aim to estimate the long-run properties of money demand specification for a number of East Asian economies and within a panel framework with the presence of structural breaks. Various country-specific coefficients are allowed to capture inter-country heterogeneities. Consistent with theoretical postulates, it is found that (a) the demand for money in the long-run positively responds to real income and inversely to the interest rate spread, inflation, the real effective exchange rate and the US real interest rate; (b) the long-run income elasticity is greater than unity; and (c) both the currency substitution and capital mobility hypotheses hold. The empirical findings in this article can provide useful policy guidelines to the East Asian countries’ central banks in their quest for price stability. If one of the primary objectives of these countries is to minimize price instability, they should avoid creating unnecessary disequilibrium in the money market, while the employment of cointegration with the presence of structural breaks clearly recommends to central banks to use the supply of money to attain price and macroeconomic stability.