CLEAN INDOOR AIR LAWS AND THE DEMAND FOR CIGARETTES

This paper empirically tests the effect of clean indoor air laws on smoking. Public place clean indoor air laws restrict cigarette smoking in public places such as restaurants. Private place clean air laws regulate smoking in private work places as well as in public places. This study uses a time series of cross sections of the 50 states of the United States and Washington, D.C., from 1975 through 1985, to estimate single equation and simultaneous equation models of cigarette demand. The single equation results indicate that both the public place law and the private work place law have a negative effect on cigarette demand. However, a test for endogeneity shows that the enactment of clean indoor air laws is a function of cigarette demand. Results from a simultaneous equations model indicate that the public place law has a significant negative impact on cigarette demand, while the work place law has no effect on cigarette demand. Although these results demonstrate that only states with low levels of smoking have passed work place clean air laws, the results do not imply that the level of smoking would not decrease if such a law were imposed in all states.     

THE DEMAND FOR CIGARETTES IN JAPAN: IMPACT OF INFORMATION DISSEMINATION ON CIGARETTE CONSUMPTION

The authors present a theoretical derivation of cigarette demand and estimate the demand in Japan with prefecturE-level data. By examining the impact of information dissemination regarding the health hazards of smoking, the authors argue that information dissemination is an effective instrument of public health policy, supplementary to cigarette taxation and antismoking ordinances.     

THE DEMAND FOR ENERGY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Interfuel substitution, a priori , seems to be of considerable importance in the economy of the United Kingdom. Consequently, an appropriate model is developed and estimated. All energy sources are demonstrated to be substitutable. Coal is the most price responsive with natural gas, oil and electrical following. The results are not inconsistent with other studies of energy substitution. Moreover, when the issue of the stability of the demand for energy types is considered, the suggestion that the demand for coal, oil, natural gas, and electrical energy have remained virtually constant over the past three decades.     

THE AGGREGATE DEMAND FOR LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA: A META-ANALYSIS*

In this paper, meta-analysis techniques are applied to 34 studies of the aggregate demand for Australian labour. Inverse associations between the real wage and employment and demand and unemployment are established, and positive associations between demand and employment and the real wage and unemployment are established. The associations are stronger with respect to the real wage. The results suggest that at least two-thirds of the variation in estimates across studies is artifactual and is due to specification differences. It is argued in this paper that the available studies are of limited value to policy formulation. No single empirical study can provide definitive measures of a particular parameter. This guarantees that substantial numbers of empirical studies of the more important parameters describing labor demand will have been produced. (Hamermesh, 1993, p. 61)     

ANNUITIZED ASSET ADEQUACY IN JAPAN: THE DEMAND FOR INDIVIDUAL PENSIONS

In this paper, I analyze the impact of social security wealth, retirement payments, and living expenses during retirement on people's retirement savings in general, and on their individual pension holdings in particular, using micro data from a 1996 Japanese household survey. I confirm a replacement effect of social security on saving for all types of households and on individual pensions for self‐employed households only. This suggests that the social security assets of self‐employed households are less than their optimal level of annuitized assets and that they would increase their demand for individual pensions if social security benefits were to be reduced.     

THE DEMAND FOR BEVERAGES AND INTERBEVERAGE SUBSTITUTION IN THE UNITED STATES

The analysis in this paper is directed at measuring the substitution between seven beverages consumed in the United States with the objective of shedding some light on just what is the relevant market for antitrust purposes. With regard to the overall beverage market considerations, there is a clear indication that consumers do substitute between different types of beverages. What must be subjectively resolved, however, is whether the extent of the indicated substitution is of significant enough magnitude to infer that two different beverages are in the same product market.     

扩大内需的人口经济学:理论与实证

本文梳理了人口与内需关系的相关理论,构建了扩大内需人口经济学的初步框架。本文利用国家统计局和世界银行提供的相关数据,基于中外经验,对人口增长、人口年龄和城乡结构变化的内需效应进行了实证分析。本文的结论是,人口增长不会破坏扩大内需,人口年龄和城乡结构的急剧变化对低消费率和高投资率有较强的解释力。实现从以物为本到以人为本、由严格控制人口增长向允许人口适度增长的转变,应成为扩大内需的重大战略。     

货币供给内生环境下财政对内需的影响研究

本文首先考察了我国货币供给内生的现实环境,并采用ARDL方法对我国经验数据进行实证检验,验证了我国货币供给的内生性问题,表明税收和政府投资是影响货币供给的内生性因素。在此基础上,从货币供给内生的前提出发,本文构建了扩展的内需增长模型,用SVAR方法考察了财政对我国内需增长率的影响。实证结果显示,税收和政府投资增速提高,均会对内需增长率产生负面影响。同时,本文还探讨了货币供给内生环境下财政对内需的影响机制,认为税收和政府投资会影响货币供给,通过新的影响路径对内需产生负面影响。     

FORECASTING THE DEMAND FOR HEALTH CARE IN OECD NATIONS AND CHINA

This article argues that the nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are facing a potential disaster: intergenerational conflicts between the large number of workers approaching retirement at an earlier age than ever before in history and the smaller number entering the labor market. These nations are confronted with the choice of whether to default on commitments to pensions and health care, to reduce benefits, or to increase the taxes borne by younger workers. The author argues that this new intergenerational conflict is the result of technophysio evolution , a synergism between technological and physiological improvements that has produced a form of human evolution that is biological but not genetic, rapid, culturally transmitted, and not necessarily stable. The author goes on to argue that an important aspect of technophysio evolution has been a change in the structure of consumption and in the division of discretionary time between work and leisure. The ongoing debate over whether or not the rapid advances in biotechnology will spare OECD nations' health systems from a financial crisis is addressed. Finally, the implications this argument has for forecasting China's future health care costs are discussed.     

中国农村耐用消费品需求研究

本文利用国家统计局1999年农户家计调查的横截面数据,采用改进的 probit 模型,对影响中国农户家电需求的因素进行了计量分析。与传统文献讨论耐用品需求的思路有所不同,本文重点讨论了影响农户家电购买因素中与基础设施有关的部分。在此基础上,本文试图遵循统计学的原理,将样本中得到的结论推广到整个农村地区,并提出相应的政策建议。