Household internal and external electricity contract switching in EU countries

Using a representative sample of more than 13,000 households from eight countries in the European Union (EU), this article empirically studies the factors related to household electricity contract switching by distinguishing between internal switchers (households that switched contracts but stayed with the same supplier) from external switchers (households that switched to a new supplier). The econometric analysis includes individual preferences, household structural factors and socio-demographic characteristics, as well as electricity market characteristics. The study explicitly explores the role of risk and time preferences on switching behaviours, with risk and time preferences elicited through incentivized experiments as well as self-assessment scales. The main results suggest that internal and external switching are not related to the same factors, that risk and time preferences affect switching behaviours, and that renters are less likely to switch than homeowners; further, electricity market characteristics are found to affect household electricity contract switching.     

Household composition,Engel curves and welfare comparisons between households: A duality approach

This paper is about household composition effects in consumer theory. These are important for the specification and estimation of Engel curves and demand functions. The models examined here have important applications in the areas of the measurement of cost of living indices, the study of poverty and inequality and in certain aspects of social policy. The models are based on the approach of Barten (1964). Taste differences between households are parameterized in a way which has been called simple good augmenting or simple repackaging in the literature on quality change. In this theory, changes in household composition play an analogous role to price changes. ‘True household equivalent scales’ are developed which are analogous to true cost of living indices and permit welfare comparisons across households.     

Estimating the Cost of Children from New Zealand Quasi-unit Record Data of Household Consumption

This paper utilizes quasi-unit record data on expenditures and incomes of New Zealand households of different demographic profiles to estimate alternative versions of a preference-consistent complete demand system. From the estimated models, it computes the households' expenditure elasticities and the equivalence scales required by households of different demographic profiles to attain comparable utility levels.     

Household tax evasion

Household members share public goods and make intra-household transfers. We show how these features of the household interact with the tax evasion decision, and identify the dimensions in which household evasion differs from individual evasion. In the model we present two members of a household choose how much to contribute to a household public good and how much self-employment income to evade. We are interested in how different evasion possibilities interact with the contribution decisions to the household public good and the role of income transfers within the household. We show the household evasion decision differs from the individual decision because it affects the outcome of the household contribution game. When household members are taxed as individuals neutrality applies when choices are not constrained. If the evasion level of one household member is constrained then an income transfer can generate a Pareto improvement. When the household members are jointly taxed there is a couple constraint on strategies and corner solutions can emerge.     

Household Composition, Equivalence Scales and the Reliability of Income Distributions: Some Evidence for Indigenous and Other Australians

Indigenous families experience substantial and multiple forms of economic burden arising from the size and structure of their families and households. Indigenous households are more likely to have more than one family in residence than other Australian households and are more likely to be multigenerational with older Indigenous people living with younger people in extended family households. This paper seeks to characterise the economies of household size in Indigenous and other Australian households using equivalence scales that cover the range of feasible values and 1995 National Health Survey data.     

Household Satellite Account for France

We estimate in a household satellite account (HHSA) the value of French domestic production in 2010 and 1998, using the input method and following Eurostat's recommendations. In line with previous studies, we find that extending the system of national accounts (SNA) frontier of production to domestic activities (house chores, cooking, care …) has a sizeable effect on key macroeconomic indicators (+33 percent GDP, ?5 p.p. GDP growth, +50 percent disposable income, +58 percent consumption, and ?10 p.p. of purchasing power growth). We conduct a sensitivity analysis to various methodological issues which have not yet been settled by an international benchmark. Quantitatively, the two most important issues are the boundary of household production—we favor a relatively narrow definition—and the use of a gross or a net wage—we prefer gross wage‐. However, estimates are much less sensitive to otherwise greatly debated issues such as which substitute wage to use.     

Household food demand in rural China

This article explores rural household food consumption behaviour in China using a large household data set from Jilin Province. Data are classified into four main food groups—grain, vegetable products, animal products and other foods. A household food demand system, incorporating four household characteristics, is estimated using an LA-AIDS model, assuming a three-stage budgeting procedure. Expenditure elasticities for a range of food groups are estimated, with a particular focus on animal products. The inclusion of household characteristics did not have a big impact on the elasticity values in any of the three stages of the budgeting process. The total expenditure elasticity for grain (Stage II) was 0.64, suggesting substantial future growth in household demand for fine grains such as rice and wheat, as per capita incomes continue to grow in rural areas. The highest conditional and total expenditure elasticity values were for the animal products (Stage II) group, 1.22 and 0.76, respectively. Within this group the elasticities were highest for the meat sub-group at 1.14 and 0.87, respectively, suggesting an almost proportionate increase in demand as household incomes grow. Added demand pressures from animal production will likely keep grain policy high on the political agenda.     

Household Debt and Financial Constraints in Australia

Over the past decade, household debt (as a share of household income) has reached historically high levels. This has raised concerns about whether, as a result of the rise in debt, households are now more financially ‘fragile'. Using household survey data, a logit model is constructed to examine the relationship between the probability of being financially constrained and the economic and demographic characteristics of households in Australia. We find that the probability of a household being constrained is significantly affected by demographic and economic variables such as age, home ownership, weekly household income, and the share of income going to repayments on mortgage debt. Comparing survey results across time, it appears that the overall proportion of households that are financially constrained has fallen or, at worst, remained unchanged between 1994 and 2001. Much of the rise in debt appears to have been due to unconstrained households taking on more debt. As such, the rise in the aggregate debt to income ratio associated with owner‐occupier mortgages appears to be the result of voluntary household choice and not to be associated with an increase in household financial distress.     

Household Transport Demand in a CGE-framework

The main objective of this study is to improve the modelling of household demand for transport services in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. The new extended model is then used for numerical calculations to test how the Swedish economy reacts to a carbon target. Special attention will be given to distributional effects and the connection between labour supply and work journeys in a sparsely populated country like Sweden. A differentiation between trip purposes and trip length, a complementary relationship between work journeys and labour supply, and a subdivision of households by density of population and income influence the numerical results. Our main conclusions from the analysis of a carbon target are that if the carbon tax revenue is recycled by decreasing the employers’ social contribution fee, welfare costs are lower than with lump-sum replacements of tax revenue to households. The welfare cost may be reduced even further if work journeys are not additionally taxed as compared to the base year. However, the lower total welfare cost is obtained at the expense of making society more unequal, since both labour tax recycling (cuts in employers’ social contributions) and exempting tax on work journeys will make low income groups carry a higher burden. An increased carbon dioxide tax is also shown to increase welfare differences between sparsely populated areas and city regions in Sweden.      

The Collective Household, Household Production and Efficiency of Marginal Reforms

Most research on the welfare properties of taxes employs the unitary model of the household, ignoring household production. A simple model provides expressions for the changes in individual utility given marginal reforms to government policy. It is shown that the burden of a higher tax on household goods falls on the household member that consumes more than they produce or purchase. Numerical calculations show that price substitution (complementarity) between home and market labor increases (decreases) aggregate efficiency costs of a marginal redistribution of income without impacting the intra-household distribution of utility changes. Modeling household goods as public versus private can alter the distributional consequences of marginal reforms.     

我国生猪养殖户饲料需求行为分析——基于对辽宁、河北生猪养殖户的问卷调查

本文以对辽宁、河北两省生猪养殖户饲料使用情况的调研数据为基础,从养殖户饲料需求的总体情况、养殖户的不同养殖规模、养殖户的不同兼业程度3个角度分别对我国生猪养殖户的饲料需求行为进行分析。结果表明:调研两省生猪养殖户的工业饲料使用比重不高、饲料粮使用比重较高、农副产品使用比重差异较大,这主要是受生猪养殖的规模化水平、饲料价格以及当地资源条件等因素的限制。     

碳排放、家庭与城市发展

本文利用我国2006年74个主要城市的面板数据,对各个城市一个标准家庭的碳排放进行了有效估算并进行排名。结果表明,在以标准家庭碳排放为唯一衡量指标时,淮安和宿迁是最“绿色”的城市,大庆和牡丹江是最“灰色”的城市;即使在最“灰色”的城市大庆,一个标准家庭产生的碳排放量也仅是美国最“绿色”城市圣地亚哥的1／5;城市人口规模、人口增长、收入、气温和城市化发展模式等因素对碳排放均有影响,家庭碳排放量与一月份平均气温显著负相关。     

Household Saving in Japan

Recent research has indicated that Japanese and American saving behaviour may not be fundamentally different. In this paper we have tried to determine if aggregate saving in Japan, as in the United States, is driven by a small number of very wealthy or high-income households. We found that about 12% of households account for 75% of total positive saving, 75% of total negative saving and 75% of total net saving. These conclusions reinforce the hypothesis that the savings process in Japan is not distinctive, and highlight the importance of research on the heterogeneity of saving behaviour.
JEL Classification Numbers: D12, D31, E21.     

'One Household/Two Systems'

Under China's dual-track approach to reform, 'one household/two systems', or combining state and private employment within a family, connotes having the best of both worlds. Drawing upon work history data for 5000 households, the present study looks at who is employed in the private sector. Findings are that marriage to a state-employed spouse actually reduces the probability of one's holding a private sector job and that the effects of living with a state-connected parent are mixed. Were households more actively pursuing a one-household/two-systems strategy, the transition from state dependence would be expedited.     

Household Finances and Social Interaction: Bayesian Analysis of Household Panel Data

We investigate the relationship between social interaction and household finances using the British Household Panel Survey. We explore the relationship between a wide range of aspects of household finances and social interaction, rather than focusing on one particular facet of household finances, such as the holding of stocks and shares. We develop a Bayesian statistical framework to simultaneously explore both sides of the household balance sheet—liabilities and assets. Additionally, we allow the influence of social interaction on household finances to be time dependent, enabling us to model the effects of social interaction from a dynamic perspective. We also develop a two‐part model to jointly investigate the influence of social interaction on the amount of different types of debt and financial assets held conditional on holding the different types of debt and assets. Our analysis suggests that social interaction is associated with households holding larger amounts of debt and assets.     

Household Decisions and Equilibrium Efficiency

A general equilibrium model is introduced where a household may consist of several members, each with individual preferences and/or resources. When households obey collective rationality, certain intrahousehold externalities can be fully internalized by the respective households so that competitive exchange among households is efficient. As a rule, however, such intrahousehold externalities are not fully internalized by individual household members acting in their personal interest so that competitive exchange among such individuals is only efficient in exceptional cases.     

Household savings constraints,uncertainty and macroprudential policy

We investigate the impact of macroprudential policy on Irish households' perception of savings adequacy, with a particular focus on households intending to purchase a home. These measures tighten loan-to-value ratios and raise the entry cost for home purchase. We find that the measures have had a significant impact on savings constraints. Indeed, constrained potential buyers, who are planning to purchase, but not presently saving to buy a home, are the group most affected as the macroprudential rules increase the downpayment size required. Heterogeneous effects across households indicate younger, private renting households, and those with relatively uncertain cash flows.     

中国城镇、农村居民消费的分析与比较

在借鉴西方跨期最优消费选择理论和相对收入假说所提出的"棘轮效应"的基础上,估计中国的消费函数,鉴于我国城镇和农村居民在消费行为方面存在差异,本文分城镇居民和农村居民对模型单独进行检验,考察两者在影响消费的因素方面的差异,并试图找到产生这种差异的原因。最后,根据城镇居民和农村居民消费函数的不同特点,提出拉动居民消费的政策建议。     

Combining Household Income and Expenditure Data in Policy Simulations

The analysis of the distributional impact of fiscal policy proposals often requires information on household expenditures and incomes. It is unusual to have one data source with information on both and this problem is generally overcome with statistical matching of independent data sources. In this paper Grade Correspondence Analysis (GCA) is investigated as a tool to improve the matching process. GCA draws out the relationships between the common variables to enable the sample to be partitioned into more homogeneous groups, prior to matching. An evaluation is conducted using the UK Family Expenditure Survey, which is unusual in containing both income and expenditure at a detailed level of disaggregation. Imputed expenditures are compared with actual expenditures through the use of indirect tax simulations. The most successful methods are then employed to enhance data from the Family Resources Survey and the synthetic dataset is used as a microsimulation model database.     

Engel Scales for Australia, the Philippines and Thailand: A Comparative Analysis

The purpose of this study is to explore the question of how similar or how different are equivalence scales of selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In particular, the article investigates whether equivalence scales for Australia, the Philippines and Thailand are comparable. That the Philippines and Thailand are two countries which are strikingly similar in their levels of socioeconomic development suggests the possibility that the relative income needs of households of different sizes in these countries are similar. In contrast, Australia is seen as an industrialised nation unlikely to have scales similar to the two other countries. The comparability problem is addressed via the widely used Engel estimation methodology applied to similarly selected samples and a common model specification. It is found that the level of agreement between the country-specific scales is highly dependent on what ‘basket of necessities’ is used as an indicator of welfare. An interesting outcome that may well be of useful empirical significance is that with necessities defined to include food, clothing, and housing (and possibly, medical care as well), the equivalence scales for the Philippines, Thailand and Australia are more or less invariant; no such regularity exists if the definition of necessities is confined to food alone.