Who benefits more from higher household consumption? The intra-household allocation of nutrients in China

Previous studies find that human capital investments in boys are less income elastic than investments in girls, attributing this result to favoritism toward boys. I show theoretically that it is plausible for more productive or favored household members to have higher income elasticities. I then investigate this question empirically, utilizing panel data on individual nutrient intake from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) to analyze how changes in household per-capita nutrient intake affect the intra-household allocation of nutrients. To deal with potential biases due to omitted variables and simultaneity, I use measures of rainfall variation as instruments. I find that nutritional intakes are more elastic for males (especially prime-age men) than for females, and significantly less elastic for the elderly.     

A (nearly) global look at the dynamics of youth smoking initiation and cessation: the role of cigarette prices

This study investigates the role of cigarette prices on smoking initiation and cessation among youth in a sample of eight primarily non-Western low, middle, and high income countries, with a particular focus on a subsample of 40 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using split-population duration models on longitudinally-transformed individual data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), the average impact of cigarette prices in the presence of unobserved country heterogeneity and shifting cultural norms within countries is identified by the variation of cigarette prices within countries over time. Price increases are found to effectively reduce initiation in early youth, and girls are considerably more responsive than boys. The price elasticity of initiation in LMICs is ?0.82 for the combined gender analysis, ?0.46 for boys only and ?1.5 for girls only. There is some indication that youths in developing countries may be slightly less responsive to price changes than in high-income countries. No evidence is found that cigarette prices increase quitting rates in youth, which may be due to the difficulty of defining true quitting among smokers in early life.     

Effects of Changes in Household Size,Consumer Taste & Preferences on Demand Pattern in India

Current research in applied demand analysis has been addressing the twin issues of degree of non-linearity or curvature of the Engel curves and the ability to capture price effects appropriately by the demand system. Further, in addition to income and prices, the role of demographic variables like household size, composition and dynamic aspects like consumer taste & preferences are also being ’ emphasized in recent literature. Continuous efforts are being made to modify the existing models and propose new ones to incorporate the above developments. The purpose of this study is to re-examine the usefulness of the popular linear expenditure system vis-à-vis the two other flexible models viz. Nasse expenditure system, a generalization of the linear expenditure system itself, and the almost ideal demand system in the above context for India.The empirical results indicate wide variation in marginal budget shares and demand elasticities across income groups, rural-urban sectors and alternative models. The household size and consumer taste & preferences are found to be statistically significant. The results confirm the earlier findings that there are significant changes in consumer tastes away from cereals and pulses in favor of other food and nonfood commodities. The results also show that flexible models, which are theoretically superior, gave unacceptable positive price responses for some commodities and violated second order conditions of utility maximization. It is found that some ad-hoc separability restrictions are needed, thereby limiting the flexibility of the model, to get negative own-price responses in these models. But, second order conditions are still violated. The tests of nested hypotheses also confirm the need for inclusion of household size, consumer taste, income group and rural-urban dummies along with their interaction variables in the demand system.

     

消费传导视角下资产 价格对物价水平的影响

本文在生命周期-持久收入（LC PIH）模型基础上分析了资产价格波动对居民消费及物价水平的影响，发现资产价格波动可以通过预算约束效应、实际收入效应、预期收入效应与替代效应四个渠道影响资产持有者的消费行为，进而影响物价水平。在此基础上，本文运用ARDL UECM模型实证分析了资产价格对物价水平的影响，实证结果发现股票、房地产价格在长期内与物价存在相关关系，房地产价格是影响物价水平的重要因素，但股票价格对物价的影响不显著且不稳定。     

Routine

Temporal routine - maintaining the same schedule from day to day - saves time. It is also boring and inherently undesirable. As such, the amount of temporal routine a person engages in is partly an economic outcome, affected by variations in the price of time, household income and the ability to generate variety. Using time-budget data from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, I show that men engage in more routine behavior than women, because they spend more time in (routine) market work. More educated people engage in less routine behavior; higher household incomes enable people to purchase more temporal variety. Spouses’ temporal routines are highly complementary. The positive income effects and impacts of schooling indicate yet another avenue by which standard measures of inequality understate total economic inequality.     

Outlay equivalence analysis of child gender bias in household expenditure data

This article reports the results of an empirical analysis of gender‐based discrimination among children based on household consumption data from Uzbekistan. We employ the outlay equivalence methodology to examine whether the entry of a new child leads to different effects in the decrease of adult good consumption for boys and for girls. We use a semi‐parametric estimation method to address the so‐called ‘zero consumption problem’, the statistical problem that arises because some households have zero consumption on a budget line in the period prior to the survey date. The results indicate that alcohol and tobacco reveal the incidence of discrimination against girls, while other groups of adult goods do not.     

收入差距、家庭可支配收入与商品房价格：基于广州市的实证研究

论文使用1998—2009年广州市商品房价格和城镇居民不同收入家庭可支配收入来分析房价与收入差距和家庭可支配收入之间的关系。实证检验发现,收入差距扩大为房价上涨的Granger原因,但是房价并不是收入差距的Granger原因。房价对低、中低收入户的家庭可支配收入有较大影响,而中、中高收入户的家庭可支配收入是房价上涨的主要推动力量,高收入家庭既促进了房价上涨同时也从中受益最大。政策制定应该依据房价与不同收入户的家庭可支配收入之间的关系而具体实施,不能一概而论。     

The Distributional Effects of Inflation in Australia 1980–1995

This paper examines the distributional effects of price changes in Australia over the period 1980 to 1995, using equivalent variations and equivalent incomes. The Linear Expenditure System is applied to each of a range of income groups rather than using a single set of parameters. The price changes are found to impose a relatively higher burden on lower income groups in some years, although in other years the higher income groups were affected relatively more. The distribution of equivalent incomes has the highest inequality in years of high overall inflation. However, the effects on inequality are low: the highest increase in inequality as a result of differential price changes is less than one per cent.     

The demand for alcohol in the United Kingdom

Using the AIDS model, we show that there exists for the UK a stable long-run relationship between expenditure shares on beer, cider, spirits and wine, alcohol prices, total alcohol expenditure and a range of non-economic variables relating to advertising, licensing, the employment, social class and demographic characteristics of consumers, and climate. Our estimates of key price and income elasticities generally lie between those found from other time-series studies (which exclude most of these non-economic variables) and those found from cross-section studies (which generally include them). However, the restrictions required for separability, homegeneity and symmetry (although not those for perfect price aggregation) are decisively rejected.     

Price elasticities and tax reform in Mexico

Price responses are usually estimated for the average household. However, different households are unlikely to respond in a similar way to movement in prices. Consequently, relying on averages may be misleading when examining the behaviour of a particular group of households such as the poor. This article uses six household surveys collected in Mexico between 1989 and 2000 to derive price responses for 10 product groups and for five levels of income households. The estimated price elasticities are then fed into a micro simulation model to measure the effect of a marginal tax reform. The results find that that poorer households tend to react substantially more to movement in prices, suggesting the usefulness of estimating elasticities that reflect the behavioural responses of the poor rather than of the entire population. The micro simulation results indicate that reducing the taxes on maize, alcoholic beverages and vegetables would be both more equitable and more efficient in terms of social welfare. Meanwhile, a reduction in the tax on legumes, sugar, and oils and fats, while inefficient, would contribute to reduce inequality.     

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.     

The effects of price on household demand for food and calories in poor countries: are our databases giving reliable estimates?

Food price policy relies heavily on estimated price elasticities of food demand to help balance the nutritional and economic objectives in poor countries. Economists use either unit values (ratios of household expenditure to quantity purchased) or community prices (enumerated from vendors in local markets) as proxies for market prices when estimating price elasticities with household survey data. Biases are believed to result from using unit values, due to measurement error and quality effects, but evidence on this issue is lacking and even less is known about community prices. This article provides an empirical evidence from Vietnam, which suggests that economists should exercise caution when estimating price elasticities from household surveys. A 14-food demand system is estimated alternatively with unit values or community prices, and the elasticity of calories with respect to rice prices is calculated. This elasticity is more than twice as large (?0.54 versus ?0.22) when community prices are used rather than unit values. Hence, conclusions about the nutritional effects of rice price increases appear sensitive to data choices made by economists. More generally, this discrepancy suggests that the household survey databases commonly used by economists may not provide reliable estimates.     

贫富差距、供求弹性与房价*

近些年，中国的贫富差距和房价居高不下，但现有文献忽视供求弹性与贫富差距交互作用对房价的影响。据此，本文构建结合贫富差距和供求弹性的住房存量调整模型，使用中国2002—2012年7省份33个城市的UHS数据发现，收入和财富的基尼系数对房价有正影响；供求弹性对房价分别有负影响和正影响；收入和财富基尼系数与供求弹性交互项对房价分别有正影响和负影响。据此，为防止房价泡沫，各级政府一方面应缩小贫富差距，另一方面应增加土地和住房供给。     

Estimating fundamental and affordable housing price trends: a study based on Singapore

Policy-makers often impose some cooling measures on the housing market when housing prices rise fast. Such policies yield limited success if housing prices are driven up by fundamentals. Estimating a fundamental price trend from observed price data is a challenge. We present an empirical methodology to separate housing price trends into fundamental and affordable components. Deviating from the common practice, we replace current income by a long-run income measure constructed from household incomes at different quantiles. This income measure provides a more suitable basis for constructing affordable house price levels. It also serves as a better fundamental variable, especially for segmented housing markets like that of Singapore. These price trends provide policy-makers with useful information to intervene into property markets to achieve desirable outcomes. Analysing Singapore data using this methodology shows the magnitudes of the price gaps between actual and fundamental prices and how housing affordability fluctuates over price cycles.     

Is there the threshold effect of cigarette price on smoking prevalence? A cross-country panel data analysis

This article shows new cross-country evidences by empirically investigating the joint effects of cigarette price levels and joining the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) on smoking prevalence in 74 countries over the period of 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2006. We assessed cigarette price elasticity for three national income levels using different databases on cigarette price from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), demographic and socioeconomic country characteristics from the World Bank and adjusted smoking prevalence rates published by various yearly WHO reports on the global tobacco epidemic from 2000 to 2010. A panel threshold regression was used to capture the nonlinear effects that cigarette prices on smoking prevalence at the three national income levels endogenously determined by estimation. Our findings supported the evidence that joining the WHO FCTC would have a positive effect on reducing cross-country smoking prevalence, especially among countries with low- and medium-income levels. Moreover, some simulated results show that a price hike of 10% would reduce smoking prevalence in countries with national income levels equal to or less than US$1900 and by 7.2% in countries with national income levels between US$1900 and US$2510 more than those with national income levels that are higher than US$2510.     

IMPROVING REVEALED PREFERENCE BOUNDS ON DEMAND RESPONSES*

There are three key dimensions by which revealed preference bounds on consumer demand responses can be improved. The first relates to the improvements that arise from using expansion paths for given relative prices, E‐bounds. The second concerns the addition of new price information. Thirdly, there are improvements due to assuming separability. Our previous research has examined the first two cases. In this article, we show how to impose separability assumptions within a fully nonparametric analysis and distinguish between weak and homothetic separability. We also apply these ideas to the analysis of demand responses using United Kingdom household level data.     

Decomposing the Changes in Production Prices into "Capital-Intensity" and "Price" Effects: Theory and Evidence from the Chinese Economy

This paper deals with the changes in prices of production inducedby variations in income distribution on the basis of a linearmodel of production with circulating capital and homogeneouslabour. It is shown that the total effect of income distributionon prices can be decomposed into a "capital-intensity" and a"price" effect and that, in actual economies, the former isexpected to dominate the latter. In order to obtain a concreteidea of the actual trajectories of the price movements and toquantify the relative strength of the two effects, we use input–outputdata of the Chinese economy.     

THE MEASUREMENT OF INCOME DISTRIBUTION DYNAMICS WHEN DEMOGRAPHICS ARE CORRELATED WITH INCOME

We show how to account for differentials in demographic variables, in particular mortality, when performing welfare comparisons over time. The idea is to apply various ways of "correcting" estimated income distribution measures for "sample selection" due to differential mortality. We distinguish the direct effect of mortality, i.e. individuals who die leave the population and no longer contribute to monetary welfare, from the indirect effect, i.e. the impact on survivors in the deceased's household who may experience a decrease or increase in monetary welfare. In the case of Indonesia, we show that the direct and indirect effects of mortality on income distribution have opposite signs, but are roughly the same in magnitude. Moreover, the effects of other demographic changes dominate the effects of mortality, whether direct or indirect. However, in the post-crisis period these demographic changes also explain a substantial part of the overall change in the distribution of income.     

PRIM I: A MODEL OF THE PRICE AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION MECHANISM OF AN OPEN ECONOMY

PRIM I is a numerical model which has been extensively used as a basis for an income policy in Norway in recent years. It is a static, cost-push, input-output model. Wage rates, agricultural prices, productivities and world market prices are treated as exogenous variables, and the model derives short-term changes in income shares and in the national price level from changes in these exogenous variables. A key feature of the model is a distinction between "exposed industries" which are subject to strong foreign price competition, and "sheltered industries" which are relatively free of such competition. These two groups of industries are found to react with very different pricing policies in response to increases in costs; furthermore, possibly for technological reasons, the export industries have greater scope than the majority of the sheltered industries for compensating cost increases through productivity gains. These two facts are shown to have important implications for a price and income policy. It is demonstrated, i.a. that the goal of a stable national price level is, in general, inconsistent with the maintenance of stable income shares when exchange rates are kept constant.