Commodity Rates of Interest and Intertemporal Substitution in Commodity Demand and Consumption

This paper examines the role of commodity own rates of interest in intertemporal analysis of consumer behaviour and presents a disaggregate analysis of intertemporal substitution in commodity demand and consumption. Commodity rates of interest are defined from the Euler equations implied by the intertemporal consumer choice problem. The relationship between commodity own rates and the real interest rate is derived, and the conditions for equality of commodity own rates are discussed. The intertemporal commodity substitution elasticities are characterised using commodity rates of interest, and the intertemporal substitution elasticity of consumption is derived from its constituent commodity demands. Evidence from estimation of the demand system and the consumption function reveals high intertemporal substitution for consumer goods as well as consumption.     

The aggregate elasticity of factor substitution with middle products

The elasticity of substitution between factors in production relates the change in the ratio of factors used in a production process to a given change in the factor price ratio. An aggregate concept of such an elasticity relates a change in overall factor endowments to the resulting change in factor prices. For a closed economy the behavior of consumers is an important part of such an aggregate elasticity, since endowment changes can bring about changes in commodity prices and resulting adjustments to factor prices. For a small open economy, commodity prices in typical models are exogenous. In the model with middle products, all final consumer goods are non-traded, so that local consumer behavior can affect factor prices. The aggregate elasticity of substitution is shown to be an average of production elasticities and demand elasticity even for a small open economy.     

Structural changes in exports of an emerging economy: Case of Turkey

This paper indicates that Turkish exports are subject to structural changes as Turkey integrates into global production networks. Integration, which leads vertical specialization in production and changes in the commodity composition of Turkish exports in favor of non-traditional commodities, paces up during economic reform periods. As the export shares of non-traditional commodities, which have higher import and income sensitivity but lower real exchange rate elasticity, increases, coefficients of the aggregate export function change accordingly. Nevertheless, high import and income elasticity of exports imply that the global growth pattern plays a significant role in determining exports of Turkey.     

Joint Allocation of Leisure and Consumption Commodities: A Japanese Extended Consumer Demand System 1979—90

In this study we estimate the parameters of a household expenditure function which includes joint choice of leisure and consumption commodities in scope without a separability assumption. We have used Japanese prices, wage rate, labour supply, and expenditure data on ten commodity groups, collected from 47 cities over 12 years. This data set has the advantage that separate observations are available for each data point for all the variables. We employed the AI demand system, for estimation. Controlling for time-specific effects, the result implied a definite rejection of the weak separability of labour supply and commodity choice, and non-rejection of the homogeneity and symmetry restrictions on the demand system. All the own-price elasticities are significantly negative, and both substitutes and complements are observed across commodity groups. As for the negativity, all but one of the eigenvalues of the substitution matrix are negative. The result as a whole showed consistency with demand theory. The estimated compensated labour supply elasticity is 0.39, which is in reasonable agreement with the previous studies.     

需求弹性理论分析及企业决策应用

需求价格弹性是需求弹性分类中的一种,它与企业的销售收入有着直接的关系,而传统理论对于需求价格弹性与企业销售收入间关系的结论不够准确,本文在传统理论的基础上,更进一步的给出相关的证明。并且本文也分析需求弹性理论在企业决策中的重要应用。     

Some Marginalist Intuition Concerning the Optimal Commodity Tax Problem

The author offers a simple intuition that can be exploited to derive and to help interpret some canonical results in the theory of optimal commodity taxation. He develops and explores the principle that the marginal social welfare loss per last unit of tax revenue generated be equalized across tax instruments. A simple two-consumer, two-taxed-commodity economy is used to explore how this intuition can be used to derive the famous inverse elasticity rule, as well as the modifications and extensions needed to account for the redistributive effects of commodity taxes.     

Relative prices and the demand for money

This paper examines the validity of the conventional specification of money demand with particular reference to the issue of relative prices. It is shown that the conventional money demand function is based on the assumption of weak separability of money from commodities, which forms the basis for the absence of relative prices in money demand. Empirical and presumptive evidence suggests that weak separability is not tenable, implying that relative prices are important in money demand. The inclusion of commodity prices in money demand significantly affects the interest and income elasticity estimates. Finally, it is noted that the aggregate consumption function excluding commodity prices also has no theoretical and empirical base.     

Optimal taxation and cross-price effects on labor supply: Estimates of the optimal gas tax

This study estimates parameters necessary to calculate the optimal second-best gasoline tax, most notably the cross-price elasticity between gasoline and leisure. Prior theoretical work indicates the importance of this elasticity, but despite this, almost none of the prior studies of commodity taxation (and none of the studies on second-best environmental regulation) actually estimate it. Using household data, we find that gasoline is a relative complement to leisure, and thus that the optimal gasoline tax is significantly higher than marginal damages-the opposite of the result suggested by the bulk of the prior literature. Indeed, even if there were no externalities at all associated with gasoline, the optimal tax rate would still be almost equal to the average gas tax rate in the U.S. Following this approach to estimate cross-price elasticities with leisure could strongly influence estimates of optimal rates for other important commodity or pollution taxes.     

The impacts of China on economic growth: Evidence for Brazil,Chile, and Peru

This study empirically analyzes the direct impacts derived from the swift increase in exports to China (referred to as “the impact of China”) on the economic growth of three selected South American countries, Brazil, Chile, and Peru, during the commodity boom between 2001 and 2008. The results stemming from the balance-of-payments-constrained growth model suggest that the magnitude of China’s impact was less than 1 percent, although it ranged from the largest to the second largest impact among all trading partners for the three countries. The estimated balance-of-payments growth rate of domestic income is lower than the real growth rate of domestic income. This is because the growth rates of the export volumes were not sufficient even during the commodity boom, on account of the continued increasing trends of income elasticity of demand for imports. Furthermore, the income elasticities of demand for imports from China were especially high. Therefore, the three countries will continue to face further increase in the income elasticity of demand for imports as well as a stagnant growth rate of export volumes. Thus, the balance-of-payments position will continue to be the main growth constraint for these countries.     

An instrumental variables approach to estimating tax revenue elasticities: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper exploits the significant response of real GDP growth of Sub-Saharan African countries to exogenous international commodity price and rainfall shocks to construct instrumental variables estimates of the tax revenue elasticity IV estimates yield that a 1% increase in GDP increases tax revenues by up to 2.5%.     

International risk sharing and commodity prices

Abstract Cole and Obstfeld (1991) exposited a classic result where equilibrium movements in the terms of trade could make ex ante risk‐sharing arrangements unnecessary: a unity elasticity of substitution across goods and production specialization. This paper extends their model to N countries and M commodities (N > M). Here the terms of trade provides insurance against commodity‐specific shocks, not country‐specific shocks. Using commodity‐level production data at the national level and world commodity prices, we document significant terms of trade variability and positive responses of nation‐specific production to terms of trade improvements. The endogenous terms of trade insurance mechanism highlighted in CO is virtually non‐existent.     

RASAT,a model for the estimation of commodity trade flows in EFTA

The RAS method of updating a trade flow matrix is extended into the third dimension of commodity trade. The model is used to update the 1959 trade flows to 1965 for the EFTA countries. Measures are then derived to estimate trade diversion within EFTA. These estimates are contrasted with other ex-post estimates, and are further used to examine the accuracy of the predictions of trade diversion from a simple elasticity of demand model.     

弹性概念的延伸——质量弹性

质量弹性表示在一定时期内一种商品的质量成本变动一定比例所引起的该商品的需求量的变动比例。质量弹性的实质是质量变动对需求量的影响程度。影响质量弹性的因素主要有消费者的收入水平、产品价格在消费者收入中所占比例、商品对消费者的重要程度、市场竞争程度。质量弹性可以分为富有弹性、单位弹性和缺乏弹性三大类。企业提高产品质量的原则是：只要利润增量大于成本增量,企业就应该不断提高质量,直到利润增量等于成本增量。企业应该分析不同时期各个市场的质量弹性,决定相应时期、相应市场的商品质量定位,在更好地满足消费者需求的同时,获得更大的收益。     

Commodity Taxation and the Effects of Entry: A Case of Variety Preferences

We study the relationship between commodity taxation and the effect of entry with imperfect competition. We develop a simple general equilibrium model with imperfect competition in which consumers have variety preferences. As a result, we see that introducing specific taxes increases social welfare. Furthermore, we show that the optimal tax rule is contrary to the inverse elasticity rule.Acknowledgement We wish to thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.     

Demand and distance: Evidence on cross-border shopping

An important issue for commodity taxation is the extent to which changes in foreign taxes affect the extent of cross-border shopping and thereby, domestic tax revenue. We use data from Swedish municipalities to estimate how responsive alcohol sales are to foreign prices, and relate the sensitivity to the location’s distance to the border. Typical results suggest that the elasticity with respect to the foreign price is around 0.3 in the border region; moving 150 (400) km inland reduces the cross-price elasticity to 0.2 (0.1). Our estimates suggest that a recent Danish cut in the spirits tax reduced Swedish tax revenues from spirits sales by more than 2%, and that an attempt by Sweden to cut taxes in response would reduce tax revenues further.     

Commodity Taxation and Economic Growth

We construct a variety expansion growth model following Grossman and Helpman (1991) and incorporate various groups of goods into the model. Each group has its own elasticity of substitution. We seek to determine the goods on which the government should impose higher rates of commodity tax in order to raise a certain amount of tax revenue. We thus reconsider the Ramsey Rule (the Inverse Elasticity Rule) in a growing economy.     

Intertemporal substitution in import demand and the role of habit formation: an application of Euler equation approach for Pakistan

Introduction

The study examines the importance of intertemporal substitution in import demand considering the role of habit formation. A two-goods version of the permanent income model is used in which time-non-separability in consumers’s preferences is assumed. The model is estimated using annual data for Pakistan at disaggregated level covering the period from 1977 to 2017.

Objectives

The objective of the study is to estimate elasticities of substitution along with parameters of habit formation for consumption goods at a disaggregated level.

Method

The study employs co-integration for the estimation of parameters of elasticities of substitution and generalized method of moments (GMM) for the estimation of the parameters of habit formation from Euler equations.

Findings

The estimates of intertempral elasticity of substitution suggest that the nature of commodity group (necessity/luxury) plays an important role when consumers are making intertemporal choices. Moreover, the study finds that intratemporal elasticity of substitution is larger than intertempral elasticity of substitution in almost all cases in Pakistan, suggesting that imported and domestic goods are best described as substitutes in Edgeworth-Pareto sense. In addition, the inclusion of habit formation delivers results with plausible signs and the habit formation process seems significant for certain commodity groups including tea, beverages, tobacco products and drugs.

Conclusion

The study concludes that there is a possibility of crowding out effect on domestic consumption and the depreciation of local currency may improve Pakistan’s balance of trade.

     

First-round “crowding out” in a generalized IS-LM model

A standard result of IS-LM analysis is that fiscal policy has no first-round effects on income if the LM curve is vertical. IS-LM models, however, are based on the restrictive assumption of a one commodity production technology. This paper relaxes this assumption and shows that complete, first-round crowding out is consistent with a negative interest elasticity of the demand for money.     

Removing export-credit subsidies to the Soviet bloc: Who gets hurt and by how much

Estimates of Soviet Bloc import elasticities and of the value of credit subsidies on loans to the bloc in 1981 are used in order to simulate the impact on OECD exports, if these subsidies had been eliminated in that year. The elasticity estimates indicate that price changes have little bearing on hard currency spent on a particular commodity by the Soviet Bloc. If subsidies had been eliminated in 1981, the total decline in OECD exports to the Bloc would have been less than 5%, and for any country, if proportionally distributed among suppliers, no more than 6%, no less than 2%.     

The Emergence of the Law of Value in a Dynamic Simple Commodity Economy

Abstract

A dynamic computational model of a simple commodity economy is examined and a theory of the relationship between commodity values, market prices and the efficient division of social labour is developed. The main conclusions are: (i) the labour value of a commodity is an attractor for its market price; (ii) market prices are error signals that function to allocate the available social labour between sectors of production; and (iii) the tendency of prices to approach labour values is the monetary expression of the tendency of a simple commodity economy to allocate social labour efficiently. The model demonstrates that, in the special case of simple commodity production, Marx's law of value can naturally emerge from multiple local exchanges and operate ‘behind the backs’ of actors solely via money flows that place budget constraints on their local evaluations of commodity prices, which are otherwise subjective and unconstrained.