Integrability and aggregation in the theory of demand

Harold Hotelling believed that integrability was a necessary characteristic of both individual and market demand equations, and he demonstrated that it would hold if consumers did not have a budget constraint. If there was a budget constraint, he contended, the usual integrability condition would be replaced by a condition which assures that an integrating factor can be introduced. This paper shows that this condition can be satisfied only if the consumer's income effect is the same numerically for all goods. Aggregation by summation of individual demands is considered, and it is shown that this form of aggregation is valid if there is a budget constraint only when income effects are the same for all individuals.     

Estimation and Determinants of the Philippines' Household Carbon Footprint

Estimation of a household carbon footprint in developed countries is abundant in the literature but there are few studies from developing countries. This paper presents an estimation of household carbon emission from the consumption of various goods and services in the Philippines. We estimate household emissions by combining input–output analysis with household expenditure for 2000 and 2006. After controlling for household characteristics, the analyses reveal that income has a significant nonlinear relationship with emissions, depicting an inverted U‐shaped with a turning point beyond the current income distribution. Unless consumption patterns change, it is likely that there will be further increases in emissions as households become more affluent.     

Household consumption patterns and the consumer price index,England, 1260–1869

Existing long-run consumer price indices for England rely on a fixed consumption basket. Here we construct a methodologically improved, chained-Laspeyres price index for ordinary households based on their changing expenditure patterns between 1260 and 1869. Rather than offering a revisionist perspective on long-run costs, it confirms the broad accuracy of existing indices for the pre-industrial period. The dominant dependence of the key items of expenditure on agricultural, particularly arable, prices explains this finding. The industrial period introduced a new dynamic. The shift in household expenditure towards imported groceries and manufactured goods allowed for more substitution in response to relative price and income changes. Adding the current series to those chained-Laspeyres indices available for later periods provides a CPI for ordinary households in England over nearly eight centuries; from 1260 to the present day.     

汇率变动对就业的影响——基于内生劳动供给模型的研究

本文在开放条件下的内生劳动供给模型中假定居民可以将一定比例的收入以资产的形式持有,以此来分析汇率变动对就业的影响。结果发现,汇率变动对均衡就业水平的影响是不确定的,它取决于商品消费的相对风险规避系数和其临界值的相对大小。由于我国的现实条件所限,当前中国居民的相对风险规避系数较大,因此汇率升值将不利于我国就业,1980年至2005年中国制造业就业的实证分析验证了这个结论。     

The sophistication of exports: Is China special?

Recent studies have found that China is “special” in exporting highly sophisticated goods not comparable with its income level. In this paper we identify two measurement biases that account for this “China is special” observation. First, product quality has not been fully considered in the measurement of sophistication, which has caused an overestimation of the sophistication of China's exports. Second, the average income of China has been used to measure the export capability of China, which has caused an underestimation of China's capability of exporting sophisticated goods. After correcting the two measurement biases, China appears much less as an outlier in the cross-country comparison of the sophistication of exports.     

SAVING IS NEVER A CONSTRAINT ON INVESTMENT1

Saving is regarded in mainstream macroeconomics as a volitional relationship, like consumption. This paper argues that this view is incorrect. There is no independent volitional saving function. Since all goods produced are either consumption goods or investment goods, saving, defined as “income not consumed”, is the accounting record of investment spending. Changes in the definition of investment produce identical changes in saving, with no accompanying volitional change in saving behavior. “Saving” in economics should properly be termed “abstention” since it does not constitute transitive behavior. To understand saving behavior a Hicksian definition of income must be used, and capital gains and losses must be included in the definition of income. In modern capitalist economies most saving undertaken by agents is non‐volitional, and takes the form of permitting the market value of total net wealth to increase.     

居民家庭耐用消费品变迁中的技术与市场

改革开放以来,中国经济社会各方面发生了重大变化,居民家庭耐用消费品的变化尤为明显。实证研究表明,随着市场化改革的不断深入,城乡居民家庭耐用消费品的种类日益增多,质量和性能不断提高,究其原因,则是耐用消费品中隐含的技术的不断进步。造成技术进步并进一步推动居民家庭耐用消费品种类和性能不断提高的根本原因则是市场经济体制的逐步建立和完善,尽管技术进步收益的城乡步伐并不同步。     

The sixteenth‐century price rise: new evidence from Scotland, 1500–85

This article contributes to the emerging belief among early modern economic historians that sixteenth‐century inflation was primarily caused by monetary factors. The Scottish case study reveals a strong relationship between coinage debasement and rising prices, a contention strengthened by the fact that the Scottish experience of inflation was high in European terms, and, in particular, stands at a considerable distance from the English pattern. This study includes the first scholarly examination of prices during the 1540s, and reveals that substantial inflation first emerged during this hitherto neglected decade. Prices plateaued during the 1550s, and rose consistently from 1560 to 1585. Meanwhile real wages declined during the 1540s and from 1560 onwards. This article is methodologically innovative in constructing two baskets of commodities, designed to represent the elite experience, alongside a more traditional basket based on a working household. These reveal the divergent experiences of the price rise within Scotland: rising prices hit the poor harder than the rich due to the high cost of domestic agricultural goods in the subsistence basket and the deflationary impact of wages and luxury goods upon the overall elite basket.     

Transaction costs and crop marketing in the communal areas of Impendle and Swayimana,KwaZulu-Natal

High transaction costs are detrimental to the efficient operation or existence of markets for inputs and outputs. The cost of information and the costs associated with the search for trade partners, the distance to formal markets and contract enforcement are likely to influence the marketing of food crops. This study hypothesises that the level of income generated from food-crop sales by small-scale farmers in the Impendle and Swayimana districts of KwaZuluNatal is influenced by transaction costs and certain household and farm characteristics. Regression analysis shows that the depth of marketing methods is significantly influenced by transaction cost proxies, such as cooperation with large commercial farmers and ownership of means of transport. Results from a block-recursive regression analysis show that the level of crop income generated is determined by the depth of marketing methods, the size of allocated arable land and off-farm income. Households with lower transaction costs, sizeable allocated land and off-farm income can be expected to generate higher income from food crops. Investment in public goods such as roads, telecommunications and an efficient legal system (to uphold commercial contracts), as well as farmer support services (input supply, extension, marketing information and research), would probably raise farm and non-farm income by reducing transaction costs. This would increase the effective demand for locally produced goods and services, thus contributing to rural employment and livelihoods within rural communal areas.     

The Common Pool Dilemma of Global Public Goods: Lessons from the World Bank's Net Income and Reserves

The function of international organizations (IOs) as suppliers of international or global public goods (GPGs) has received increasing attention in recent years. But in a world with many claimants and limited resources, GPGs are more likely to have common pool properties than be pure public goods. The paper develops a joint-products model of public goods supply by international organizations, examining how specific institutional features of international organizations affect the supply of GPGs. The sources and distribution of the World Bank's net income—the single largest source of discretionary funds available annually to an IO—are used as the lens to analyze the issue. The paper examines the tension between control rights on net income (which reside primarily with nonborrowing shareholders) and the sources of net income, which largely lie with minority, borrowing shareholders. The analysis suggests that while the joint-product model of member-country support for international organizations has much merit, institutional features that were incorporated when these institutions were established sharply affect both the absolute magnitude and the distribution ratio of the benefit streams.     

Income and Price Elasticities of China＇s Exports

The appearance of new product varieties and improvements in the quality of goods have both played key roles in the rapid growth of China's exports. However, these two important elements have not been formally integrated into the demand equations for China's exports. As we demonstrate in this paper, income elasticity will be underestimated if new varieties of goods and quality improvements are omitted in price index and quantity index calculations, which are necessary for estimating the export demand function. Moreover, the faster new product varieties enter export markets, the greater the underestimation will be. In this paper, we develop an export demand equation that takes into account new product varieties and improvements in quality, and then calculate the demand function for China's exports using the data from 1992 to 2006. According to our estimation, the short‐term income elasticity of demand for China's exports is approximately 2.34, and the short‐term price elasticity is approximately –0.65. Our estimation predicts an increase in China's export value in the case of an RMB appreciation or export rebate rates reduction in the short term, due to the low price elasticity of China's exports, whose absolute value is less than 1. Our findings are novel and could have significant policy implications.     

Food consumption and grocery inflation among decile groups in Vologda oblast in 2008–2010

Food consumption by residents of Vologda oblast in 2008?C2010 in comparison with rational consumption norms is analyzed in the article. The target income level, providing a food consumption level equal to the level of rational norms, as well as consumer price inflation, is calculated taking into account income differentiation. It shows that the rise in prices mainly concerned the food basket of lower income citizens.     

Applied welfare analysis for consumers with commodity income

Summary The paper analyzes the relevance and validity of the economic surplus concept for consumers receiving their income in commodities. For these consumers, such as farmers in developing countries, it is shown that the measure of welfare gains or losses via the area under the Marshallian demand and supply curves may lead to a considerable error. The paper provides boundaries for the error of approximation as a function of the share of the product in the consumer's budget and the income elasticity of demand.     

ASEAN FTA,distribution of income,and globalization

This paper examines the impact of Free Trade Agreements on income distribution within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and between the members and their trading partners outside ASEAN. The study uses a Computable General Equilibrium model, a modified version of the 57 sector, 87 country, Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) integrated model of national input–output tables, version-6.2 (2001 database) with its reserve matrix facility, to simulate income distribution results as an outcome of certain parameter changes that appear in intra and inter regional trade.Within ASEAN, trade liberalization will stimulate the output of each country within the region according to their comparative advantage. Since trade liberalization tends to increase output of capital-intensive goods more than labor-intensive goods, the less-developed countries within the region tend to get smaller benefits compared to other member countries. In addition, the physical means of production tend to gain more relative to the gains of labor from the FTAs. This tends to widen the income gap between high-income and low-income households within ASEAN.Comparing ASEAN and the developed non-ASEAN countries, an FTA within ASEAN tends to reduce the returns to labor of the developed non-member countries and narrow the income gap between ASEAN, as a whole, and those rich countries since capital-intensive products of developing countries are often labor-intensive goods of developed countries.     

福建食品安全监管体系先行先试研究

通过探讨食品质量安全标准与规范以及食品卫生监管问题,立足供应链,从政府、企业和消费者的角度,提出福建省食品安全监管体系先行先试的对策建议。     

Was there an ‘industrious revolution’ before the industrial revolution? An empirical exercise for England,c. 1300–1830

It is conventionally assumed that the pre‐modern working year was fixed and that consumption varied with changes in wages and prices. This is challenged by the twin theories of the ‘industrious’ revolution and the consumer revolution, positing a longer working year as people earned surplus money to buy novel goods. In this study, we turn the conventional view on its head, fixing consumption rather than labour input. Specifically, we use a basket of basic consumption goods and compute the working year of rural and urban day labourers required to achieve that. By comparing with independent estimates of the actual working year, we find two ‘industrious’ revolutions among rural workers; both, however, are attributable to economic hardship, and we detect no signs of a consumer revolution. For urban labourers, by contrast, a growing gap between their actual working year and the work required to buy the basket provides great scope for a consumer revolution.     

Incremental Information Content of the Change in the Percent of Production Added to Inventory*

Abstract. Manufacturing firms can manipulate income by producing in excess of the quantity needed to meet current period demand, thereby allocating part of current period fixed manufacturing overhead costs from cost of goods sold to inventory. Because it is subject to manipulation, the component of earnings due to producing in excess of sales may be of lower quality than the remaining component of earnings. We investigate this possibility using a regression of security returns on unexpected income and an estimate of the change in percent of production added to inventory (CPAI). An analytical model indicates that CPAI determines the “earnings surprise” subject to manipulation by overproducing. Assuming the market recognizes this, the coefficient on CPAI should be negative because this low quality component must be deducted from the total “good news” conveyed by the change in reported earnings. Alternatively, CPAI may convey good or bad news to the market that is unrelated to the manipulation of current period earnings. Firms may increase the percent of production added to inventory in anticipation of high levels of future sales. In this case, the estimated coefficient on CPAI should be positive. Or, if the increase in the percent of production added to inventory reflects anticipation of a strike or an unexpected downturn in current sales, the estimated coefficient should be negative. Cross-sectional tests using a large sample of manufacturing firms indicate a significant positive relation between security returns and CPAI. This finding is consistent with market participants viewing CPAI as a leading indicator of firm performance. Although the results are most supportive of CPAI conveying good news, there is some evidence that CPAI is used by managers to smooth earnings and, for firms classified as smoothing earnings, there is weak evidence that the component of earnings related to CPAI is viewed by market participants to be of lower quality.     

收入分布、厂商定价与耐用品的消费扩张

本文考察了收入差距对耐用消费品消费的影响。我们从厂商的定价理论出发。说明了收入差距对耐用消费品消费呈现出倒U型的影响：随着收入差距扩大，耐用消费品的消费量增加，但是，收入差距继续扩大则会减少耐用消费品的消费。这说明，适当的收入差距有利于社会消费水平提高和经济的发展，过大和过小的收入差距都无助于经济的起飞。我们最后运用城镇居民和农村居民彩电、洗衣机和冰箱的拥有量对该理论进行了实证检验，实证检验结果基本上支持了我们的理论分析。     

企业目标的实现:从需求的视角

如何实现企业目标可以从多个角度考虑。文章从城镇各收入阶层居民的需求支出情况入手,借助ELES模型计算出各种商品和服务需求的弹性,从而得到各商品和服务的特征,并在不同收入层次居民间进行横向比较。通过分析得知以城镇居民为目标市场的企业面临的需求状况,并提出相应的政策建议。     

Sibling Rivalry and Strategic Parental Transfers

This paper develops a noncooperative Nash model in which two siblings compete for their parents' financial transfers. Treating sibling rivalry as a “rent-seeking contest” and using a Tullock-Skaperdas contest success function, we derive the conditions under which more financial resources are transferred to the sibling with lower earnings. We find that parental transfers are compensatory and that the family as an institution serves as an “income equalizer.” Within a sequential game framework, we characterize the endogeneity of parental transfers and link it to parents' income, altruism, and children's supply of merit goods (e.g., parent-child companionship or child services). We show that merit goods are subject to a “moral hazard” problem from the parents' perspective.