Spatial majority voting equilibria and the provision of public goods

This paper develops general equilibrium conditions for urban areas where a pure public good is provided at a level decided upon by majority voting. Models with a property tax and a head tax and external land ownership are analyzed, and equilibrium solutions are compared using a specific form for the utility function. Optimal cities are characterized and compared to those emerging from the majority voting equilibria. Models where aggregate land rent is divided equally among the urban residents are also developed.     

Consumer information on Distributor and Manufacturer Brands of food

Consumer information affirms that distributor brands of food are less expensive than corresponding manufacturer brands¹ and that these brands are equal in quality [2, p. 8]. The price difference between these two types of brands thus represents a real gain to the consumer purchasing distributor brands rather than just a case of paying less for lower quality products. Furthermore, one source has estimated that ten per cent of the grocery bill can be saved through purchasing distributor brands [6]. The credibility of this information is open to question however, as few statements concerning the price and quality of these types of brands have been carefully documented in Canada. In the light of the limited empirical support and the substantial consumer benefit involved, the purpose of this study is to test the reported relation between the price and quality of distributor and manufacturer brands. Establishing a working definition for quality is a key problem encountered in price-quality analysis. Food quality is multidimensional and its various dimensions may be classified into two broad categories: subjective or sensory attributes such as taste, aroma, appearance; and objective attributes located below the threshold of perception such as nutrients and freedom from harmful micro-organisms. Because the sensory attributes are more amenable to measurement by non-food scientists and to variation in hidden attributes being controlled by law, this paper focuses on sensory quality. The quality and preference concepts overlap to some extent, as the subjective attributes of food are common to both quality and preference. To ensure that “sensory quality” is well distinguished from overall quality, “sensory quality” is referred to as “sensory preference”. Having gone some distance towards establishing an operational definition of quality, the principal objectives are: Summary The findings, though tentative and focused on the sensory component of quality, can scarcely be regarded as providing empirical support for the price-quality information referred to earlier. Distributor brands were notably less expensive for three-quarters of the products surveyed. As well, the manufacturer brand was rated significantly higher than at least one distributor brand for four of the ten products subject to sensory evaluation. The results therefore suggest that there is a very general tendency for distributor brands to be priced lower than manufacturer brands and to be of equivalent quality.     

Social security and saving — A critical note on the feldstein hypothesis

Zusammenfassung In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird versucht, Feldsteins Hypothese, wonach die Sozialversicherung das Sparen dämpft, an Hand internationaler Querschnittdaten zu überprüfen. Ausgehend von einem Ansatz, den Feldstein aufbauend auf das Lebenszyklusmodell in den Jahren 1977 und 1980 entwickelte, wird versucht, die Validität der Ergebnisse in bezug auf Änderungen in den Variablendefinitionen, der Zeitperiode sowie der Sampleauswahl aufzuzeigen. Weiters wird der Einfluß von geringen Modellmodifikationen (Berücksichtigung der Arbeitslosenrate als Unsicherheits-bzw. Stimmungsindikator) sowie Änderungen der Schätzmethode (gewogene oder ungewogene Regression bzw. OLS oder TSLS) auf die Resultate untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß die Feldstein-Hypothese keineswegs als ein empirisch allgemein gültiges Gesetz angesehen werden kann, sondern eher als zufällig zustandegekommen.     

Adaptive expectations,rational expectations,and money demand in hyperinflation Germany

In the recent literature Sargent and Wallace (IER, June, 1973) have estimated the demand equation for money in hyperinflation under the restriction that the adaptive formula of Phillip Cagan yields rational inflation expectations in the sense of John Muth. The present paper finds evidence to reject for the Germany case the proposition that adaptive expectations are rational. The procedure employed is basically to overfit the stochastic representation for the inflation rate implied by the ‘adaptive-is-rational’ hypothesis. The paper also puts forward and applies a two-step procedure to estimate the important money demand elasticity in hyperinflation. The procedure returns reasonable results with large estimated standard errors.     

Demographic implications of autocentric development

The German politicologist Dieter Senghaas reached in his recently published book¹ the conclusion that the attempt to integrate the developing countries with the international economic system as it exists at present is bound to work out to the detriment of the developing countries — that it can only result in their “structural disablement“². Dissociation from the present system of international division of labour and origination of an “autocentric development“ offered to the developing countries their only chance of arresting the previously analysed deformation process and embarking on genuine development³. This model however comes up against demographic obstacles.     

Errata

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Errata