Limits to Growth in Organic Sales

The price gap between organic and conventional food might explain the low market share of organics in the Netherlands. A real-life experiment was carried out in 2006 in order to determine the price sensitivity of consumer demand for organics. Consumer prices of selected organic products were reduced by up to 40% below current market levels. The price elasticity of demand was low, because not all consumers perceived the price reductions. Moreover, the offer of organic varieties is limited, as is the consumer’s willingness to pay for the social attributes of organics.     

Housing problems and prospects for blacks in Houston

Houston was considered the premier Sunbelt city in the 1970s. Much of the growth during this boom period was fueled by the oil industry. The city led the nation in new jobs created and housing starts. The economic growth, however, was not uniformly distributed to all segments of the population-specifically, a large segment of the black community was passed over during the city’s housing boom. Many of the housing problems facing black Houstonians can be traced to the city’s anti-public housing sentiment, policies that create and perpetuate racial segregation, and the dismantling of the fair housing enforcement mechanism. Housing discrimination, residential segregation, and other institutional barriers all limit the mobility options for a sizable segment of the black Houston community.     

Expenditure patterns and elasticities of rural households sampled in two communal areas of KwaZulu-Natal

Expenditure patterns among a sample of 99 rural households in two communal districts in KwaZulu-Natal were investigated to determine the potential impact of a widespread income shock on household expenditure. The results showed expenditure elasticities of close to unity for food. Low elasticities were found for staple foods. Elasticities for meat, meat products and poultry were close to unity, while horticultural products showed the greatest potential for demand growth within the food category. Of the statistically significant commodity categories, expenditure elasticities for durables, housing and transport were more than double those estimated for the aggregate food category. For consumer items, the district expenditure elasticities were estimated to be 0,76 and 0,71, while expenditure on social obligations would not increase with rural incomes. Wealthier households (the top expenditure decile) have a greater propensity for increased expenditure on transport, while poorer households show a greater propensity for increased expenditure on housing and durables. Although agriculture has the potential to generate widespread growth in rural incomes, the preference for manufactured goods casts some doubt on the strength of consumption multipliers for locally produced farm and non-farm goods in rural KwaZulu-Natal.     

房价压力会刺激文化消费吗?

文章应用CFPS2010、2012、2014年的调查数据,以房价收入比指数作为"房价压力"的代理变量,探讨了房价压力对文化消费的影响机制。在我国房价收入比畸高的社会环境下,消费者同时受到"释放压力型"消费需求的驱使和可支配收入减少的预算约束,为了缓解生活压力,获得心理慰藉,增加了对相对廉价且非必需的文化消费品的需求,即口红效应成为房价压力影响文化消费的传导机制。研究发现：控制户主受教育水平、家庭其他生活压力、地区经济发展水平和文化消费氛围等因素,在城镇中仅拥有一套及以下住房资产的家庭中,高"房价压力"显著提升了居民文化消费需求。在影响机制研究中,首先,通过验证房价压力对总消费的抑制作用剥离了财富效应的影响,其次,通过验证房价压力对大额消费品和小额消费品影响的异质性,证实了房价压力对文化消费影响口红效应的存在性。进一步将研究样本按照消费文化类型、收入阶层和受教育阶层分组后发现：开放的消费文化下高"房价压力"对居民文化消费的促进作用更强,中等收入阶层在高"房价压力"下进行"释放压力型"文化消费的需求最强烈。高学历层次居民在面对"房价压力"时更倾向选择文化消费作为释放压力的渠道。     

我国城镇居民商品需求价格弹性的估计

通过将消费率变量引入到弗里希的需求价格弹性估计方法中,经过数理推导,获得了需求价格弹性估计的方程组。研究发现:就需求自价格弹性而言,商品需求受自身价格的影响程度最大,而受其他商品价格的影响程度较小。随着收入组等级提高,商品需求对其价格变化的反映更为敏感。就需求交叉价格弹性而言,食品价格对其他商品的影响程度最大。随着收入等级提高,食品价格对其他商品的影响程度不断下降。     

数字经济背景下深圳居民消费结构变迁分析

近年来,伴随着我国电商交易规模的不断增加,数字经济蓬勃发展,逐渐成为改善消费环境、促进经济发展的新引擎。同时,数字经济具有很强的网络效应,可以带动居民消费实现转型升级。本文结合2008—2018年的电商交易规模与深圳消费结构相关数据,从衣、食、住、行等方面分析了居民消费结构的变化趋势。本研究认为居民收入增加、商品价格变动、粤港澳大湾区建设等是影响深圳居民消费的重要因素,最后给出实现深圳居民消费结构升级的相关建议。     

A note on the apparent constancy of the racial wage gap in New Jersey manufacturing, 1902 to 1979

Conclusion This discussion around the black-white wage gap will continue. Inadequate data alone will make it difficult to distinguish recent fluctuations and once-only changes from long-term trends. For those who believe the racial wage gap is narrowing, the 1902 New Jersey survey of blacks in manufacturing presents a puzzle. Why at the outset of black entry into this sector of the economy do we find a racial wage gap as narrow as the one observed for New Jersey manufacturing in 1969, a year at the top of the post-World War II business cycle? Michael Reich argues that “in every region but the South the relative income of non-white males shows substantial cyclical fluctuations… but shows no upward trend over time.” The baseline established by the 1902 New Jersey survey is compatible with Reich’s conclusion.     

Inadequate supply and increasing demand for textiles and clothing: second-hand trade at auctions as an alternative source of consumer goods in Sweden, 1830–1900

Drawing on a study of historical national accounts and statistics, this article shows that a growing supply of mass-consumption textiles and clothing in Sweden during industrialization did not fully meet increasing demand. As a result, high demand for second-hand items remained even at the turn of the twentieth century. Records from a local auction house from 1830 to 1900 show that, even in the 1880s, more affluent urban consumers were still active on the second-hand market. Thereafter, they turned to the market for new goods, while potential demand from labourers and servants continued to be provided for by the second-hand market. Mechanization meant that more items entered this market. It changed the range and quality of objects available, consequently affecting the attractiveness of second-hand textiles and clothing. After the 1870s, falling and converging prices can be discerned, while more durable fabrics largely retained their value. We conclude that the consumer revolution (in a broader sense) had by this stage gained a foothold among ordinary Swedish urban households. The auction trade was part of a democratization of consumption. The general lesson is that understanding mass consumption requires research not only into second-hand consumption, but also into different regional settings.     

China and the Exports of Other Asian Countries

We analyze the impact of China’s growth on the exports of other Asian countries, distinguishing China’s demand for imports from its penetration of export markets. We account for the endogeneity of Chinese exports by applying instrumental variables in a gravity model with country-pair fixed-effects. We find that China’s crowding-out effect is felt mainly in markets for consumer goods and hence by less-developed Asian countries, not in markets for capital goods or by the more advanced Asian economies. Meanwhile, China has been sucking in imports from its Asian neighbors, but this effect is mainly felt in markets for capital goods. Hence, more and less developed Asian countries are being affected very differently by China’s rise. JEL no. E5, F4     

Notes on the producer society

Summary The author criticizes economists for their uncritical acceptance of consumers’ revealed preference and tries to explain the preferences manifest in the United States by tracing them to cultural influences, especially the Puritan Ethic, and to economic factors, such as producers’ domination and economies of scale. Differences between American and European behavior patterns are sought mainly in comparative time budgets and Hawtrey’s distinction between defensive and creative consumption is revived as a framework suitable for such analysis. These notes constitute an early version of what has since become a much more ambitious work with a more analytical approach, trying to use behavioral psychology to fill in gaps in the economist’s understanding of consumer behavior, and to be published as a book.     

The role of housing vouchers in baltimore city,Maryland

In Baltimore City, the relative well-being of black and white families using Section 8 housing vouchers versus Section 8 housing certificates is compared. Logistic regression is used to examine whether the social and economic characteristics of a regional planning district play a significantly different role in the likelihood that a district will have voucher or certificate recipients. A second analysis examines the average monthly rent paid by blacks and whites for housing in the certificate and voucher programs. The results suggest that whites receive greater economic benefits in the voucher program than in the certificate program while blacks do not. This article is based on a paper entitled /’’ The Impact of Housing Vouchers on the Black Family,” which was funded by the Baltimore Urban League and presented at the National Conference of Political Scientist, March 1989.     

Urban renewal: The case of Buffalo,NY

Scholars of urbanism have long been critical of America’s post-World War II efforts at urban renewal. What is generally less well understood is the theoretical context out of which urban renewal policy arose. This analysis sets forth the key precepts of modernist thinking in city planning as the explanation for urban renewal’s policy miscalculations. Data for Buffalo document the case, with emphasis upon the exclusion of blacks in the redevelopment process. Following three decades of failure, 1950 to 1980, a neighborhoodbased renewal project is now showing promise in meeting the housing needs of inner-city black households.     

Zur interdependenz von konsumgüternachfrage und vermögensanlage

Summary On the Interdependency of Demand for Consumer Goods and Asset Investment: A Contribution to the Theory of the Macro-Economic Consumption Function. — The purchase of consumer goods and the acquisition of financial assets represent alternative uses of personal income. Since such decisions about the disposition of income are interdependent, it seems necessary to develop a theory of the interrelated demand for consumer goods and financial assets. At first this article examines several standard consumption functions to determine to what extent demand for consumer goods and asset investment are included. In the main section the Ball-Drake approach — expanded to include adjustment and disequilibrium costs — is used to develop a consumption function, which takes into account the interdependent demand for consumer goods and financial assets. Several empirically tested consumption functions can be considered to be special cases of the hypothesis developed in this paper. It is shown in a simulated experiment that this consumption function can reproduce the anticyclical behavior of the average propensity to consume observed in the real world. Furthermore it becomes evident that a high trend rate of growth in income leads to a high propensity to save.

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Résumé De l’interdépendance de la demande des biens de consommation et du placement de la patrimoine: Une contribution à la fonction de consommation macroéconomique. — Des achats des biens de consommation et l’acquisition des actifs financiers sont des dépenses alternatives pour le revenu du ménage. Parce que ces décisions sur la répartition du revenu sont interdépendantes, il faut développer une théorie de la demande interdépendante en considérant à la fois la demande des biens de consommation et la demande des actifs financiers. D’abord, l’auteur examine quelques fonctions de consommation traditionelles dans quelle mesure la demande des biens de consommation et le placement de la patrimoine sont intégrés. Dans la partie principale, l’auteur développe la théorie de la demande interdépendante en s’appuyant sur l’approche ?Ball-Drake? qui fut élargie par l’introduction des co?ts de l’ajustement et du déséquilibre. Quelques fonctions de consommation, qui étaient vérifiées dans des études empiriques, peuvent être interprétées comme des cas spéciaux de l’hypothèse de consommation qui est proposée dans cet article. Il est montré dans un procédé de simulation que la fonction de consommation développée peut reproduire le mouvement anticyclique de la propension moyenne à consommer ce qu’on peut observer aussi en réalité. En outre, une forte croissance du revenu counduit à une haute propension à épargner.

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Resumen Sobre la interdependencia entre la demanda por productos de consumo y la formación de patrimonio: Una contributión a la función macroeconómica de consumo. — La compra de productos de consumo y la adquisición de valores efectivos constituyen para las economias domésticas formas alternativas de utilizar su ingreso. En vista de que las decisiones sobre la distributión del gasto son interdependientes, parece ser necesario elaborar una teoría de demanda, mutuamente dependiente, por productos de consumo y activos financieros. En el presente artículo se comienza analizando las funciones de consumo estándar con el fin de averiguar hasta qué punto integran la demanda de consumo con la formation de patrimonio. En la sectión principal se élabora, sobre la base del modelo Ball-Drake y después de ampliar éste mediante la introductión del coste de ajuste y de desequilibrio, una función de consumo que tenga en cuenta la reciprocidad de las demandas por productos de consumo y por activos financieros. Algunas de las funciones de consumo que han sido estudiadas empfricamente pueden considerarse como un caso especial de la función presentada aquí. Mediante un experimento de simulatión se demuestra que la función de consumo elaborada aqui puede reproducir el desarrollo anticfclico de la cuota promedio de consumo tal y como se observa en la realidad. Además sale a relucir que una tasa alta de crecimiento secular da lugar a una tasa elevada de ahorro.

     

Forecasting the region’s household income and demand by the input-output model (Case study of the Republic of Bashkortostan)

Methods of interrelated forecasting of the regional outputs of individual branches, household income, and consumption are considered. The instrument for the analysis and prediction for the parameters of the region’s economic system is a closed input-output model based on endogenous indicators of household income and demand.     

Price elasticities of key agricultural commodities in China

We estimate a simultaneous equations model of Chinese agricultural markets for wheat, rice, corn, pork, and poultry meat. Elasticities are estimated for consumption, feed demand, production, stocks demand, and foreign demand or supply faced in China. While commodity models are estimated using ITSUR in a single commodity simultaneous equations framework, an AIDS model of food demand is estimated using ITSUR as a system covering all commodities. Results fall within the wide range of results from previous studies, and are quite reasonable magnitudes. China has market power in the trade for all five commodities under study.     

Civil rights legislation and the housing status of black americans: Evidence from fair housing audits and segregation indices

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made discrimination against minorities in the sale or rental of housing illegal. Twenty years later the Act’s coverage was expanded and its enforcement mechanisms strengthened in response to pressure from fair housing advocates and evidence of continued segregation and discrimination. Segregation indices and fair housing audits provide measures of the extent and nature of residential segregation and housing discrimination. High levels of residential segregation suggest that housing discrimination exists, and audits give a direct measure of the incidence of discrimination. To date, housing audits consistently show that black auditors encounter discriminatory treatment in the housing search process. Whether the strengthened enforcement mechanisms of the Act will have a substantial impact on housing market discrimination and, in turn, residential segregation, remains to be seen.     

Forecast scenario for the development of the meat market in Russia until 2020

The forecast scenario for the development of the domestic meat market until 2020, on the basis of the author’s approach to the analysis of markets of commodity substitutes, which is related to the study of the behavior of structural changes in the consumption of these commodities, is presented. Reasoned criticism of measures for supporting the Russian meat production complex, which are suggested by the Russian Meat Union, is conducted.     

Taxing a Commodity with and without Revenue Neutrality: A Calibrated Theoretical Consumer Equilibrium Model

It has long been recognized that taxing a commodity that generates negative externalities can be used to reduce its consumption. One way to do this is to impose revenue neutrality but that may alter the tax rate required to meet a consumption reduction target. We explore the relationships among the commodity tax rate, the demand and supply elasticities, and the revenue offsets by calibrating a theoretical consumer equilibrium model and then recalibrating it with alternative parameter configurations. For each configuration we simulate equilibrium for three policy scenarios: no neutrality, neutrality achieved by subsidizing other commodities, and neutrality achieved by income transfer.     

Similarities in the Consumption Patterns of the Five Asian Tigers

The five countries of Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are considered to be the major Asian economic 'Tigers' behind Asia's growth in the late 1900s. In this paper, we analyze the consumption patterns of these five countries, using the most recent consumption data and employing the system-wide approach. We find that the consumption data from these five countries support a number of empirical regularities, including the 'law of demand' and 'Engel's law'. Based on the estimation results, we find that in all five countries, food, housing and medical care (except in Taiwan) are necessities, while clothing, durables (except in Singapore) and transport are luxuries. Demand for all the commodities is price inelastic. Furthermore, we find that the demand hypothesis, homogeneity, is acceptable for all five countries while Slutsky symmetry is acceptable only for Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. We also find that the preference-independence hypothesis is acceptable for all countries except Japan. Overall, consumption patterns of consumers appear to be similar across the five countries, while some differences exist between Japan and the other four countries.     

The Legacy of Black Lynching and Contemporary Segregation in the South

Wacquant (2001) and others have argued that social control efforts directed at racial and ethnic minorities frequently shift institutional form and become more nuanced as societies modernize, even as the underlying function persists. This study examines the connection between southern lynching and housing segregation. We argue that legal, political, social and demographic changes in the south made lynching dysfunctional as a means of control. Among other more nuanced control mechanisms, modern housing segregation helped serve as a replacement. We test this proposition by relating historical southern black lynching rates to recent levels of segregation in southern MSAs. We find that an MSA’s historical lynching rate is positively and significantly linked to the MSA’s current segregation levels after accounting for standard determinants of segregation. Thus, segregation does not just occur generally throughout the south, but follows a very particular pattern based on past lynching rates. Our findings add to a growing literature on the legacy of lynching, such as studies examining contemporaneous variation in support for and use of capital punishment.