To err is rational: A theory of excess demand for tickets

This paper examines the relationship between chronic excess demand for sporting events, a robust ticket resale market and the market for seasons tickets. The main argument focuses on property rights associated with the purchase of season tickets. Given the impossibility of pricing games individually, season-ticket holders act as brokers. The ‘broker's fees’ are paid in the form of priorities for playoff tickets and premium seats in future years. Since a pure monopoly price would render season-ticket property rights worthless, a profit-maximizing strategy requires apparent underpricing.     

The Engel curve for alcohol and the rank of demand systems

This paper shows that the quadratic shape of the Engel curve for alcohol is induced by preference heterogeneity between drinkers and abstainers in a Japanese data set. With controlling the heterogeneity, it is shown that the Engel curve for alcohol slopes monotonically downwards for drinkers, and that the probability of being a drinker is an increasing function of total expenditure. These two relationships generate a quadratic shape for the Engel curve for alcohol. Other goods in this data set appear to have nearly linear Engel curves, so if the alcohol Engel curve for drinkers is also linear, then after controlling for this preference heterogeneity the rank of this demand system would be two. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A neural network demand system with heteroskedastic errors

In this paper we consider estimation of demand systems with flexible functional forms, allowing an error term with a general conditional heteroskedasticity function that depends on observed covariates, such as demographic variables. We propose a general model that can be estimated either by quasi-maximum likelihood (in the case of exogenous regressors) or generalized method of moments (GMM) if the covariates are endogenous. The specification proposed in the paper nests several demand functions in the literature and the results can be applied to the recently proposed Exact Affine Stone Index (EASI) demand system of [Lewbel, A., Pendakur, K., 2008. Tricks with Hicks: The EASI implicit Marshallian demand system for unobserved heterogeneity and flexible Engel curves. American Economic Review (in press)]. Furthermore, flexible nonlinear expenditure elasticities can be estimated.     

A dynamic almost ideal demand system incorporating consumer expectations

In this paper a theoretical framework is presented for the analysis of the effects of psychological, perceptual or expectational factors on household expenditure within a complete demand system. The model was estimated using the Consumer Sentiment Index, which represents an index of consumer perceptions of economic conditions. Evidence was found for significant expectational effects on five of nine expenditure categories—food at home, alcohol, housing, durables and other services. The direct expectation effects were found to be small in size. The results demonstrate the model's potential usefulness as a framework for modelling consumer behavioral responses to expectations and for evaluating the welfare implications of policy-induced changes in expectations.     

A comparison among partial adjustment,rational expectations and error correction estimates of the canadian demand for money

Starting from a dynamic optimization principle, the currently most popular approaches to modelling money demand functions are derived. The partial adjustment/adaptive expectations, rational expectations, and error correction mechanism formulations are then estimated using a common data set. The error correction mechanism equation is found to dominate the others either because their implicit restrictions are rejected (rational expectations) or by employing the encompassing principle (partial adjustment/adaptive expectations). Surprisingly all three forms have similar long-run solutions. Since the short-run dynamics differ substantially, the results have important implications for the conduct of monetary policy.     

A generalization of Friedman's rank statistic

Abstract  In this paper a very natural generalization of the two-way analysis of variance rank statistic of F riedman is given. The general distribution-free test procedure based on this statistic for the effect of J treatments in a random block design can be applied in general two-way layouts without interactions and with different numbers of the continuous observations per cell provided the design scheme is connected. The asymptotic distribution under the null hypothesis of the test statistic is derived. A comparison with the method of m rankings of B enard and van E lteren is made. The disadvantage of B enard and van E lteren's test procedure is that the number of observations per block does influence the statistic twice, namely firstly by the number itself, as it should, and see ondly by the level of the ranks which will be different in different blocks if the numbers of observations per block are different. The proposed test statistic is not sensitive to differences in the levels of the ranks caused by the different numbers of observations per block. The test is derived from considerhg the K ruskal -W allis statistics per block.
Finally, the results of simulation experiments are given. The simulation is carried out for three designs and a number of normal location alternatives and gives some information about the power of the suggested test procedure. A comparison is made with B enard and van E lteren's test and with the classical analysis of variance technique. For some simple orthogonal designs the exact null distributions of B enard and van E lteren's test and the proposed test are compared.     

Estimation of a continuous-time dynamic demand system

A continuous-time dynamic model of consumers' demand, explicitly taking account of the roles of depreciation, interest rates, habits, and stocks, is estimated using recently developed techniques from discrete quarterly UK data on three broad commodity groupings. The results suggest that, whilst being a significant determinant of demand, the actual magnitude of the influence of changes in interest rates may be relatively small in the long run. The cross-price effects of durable goods are also found to be statistically significant, and symmetry of long-run compensated price responses is not rejected.     

A simultaneous equations system of money demand and supply using generalized functional forms

The Box-Cox parametric transformation was incorporated into a simultaneous money demand and supply equations systems, where the demand function had a liquidity trap. Full-Information Maximum-Likelihood parameter estimates of the ‘generalized’ system, as compared to FIML estimates from an equations system where the functional forms were a priori restricted, revealed the ‘generalized functional form’ model had superior forecasting ability, smaller impact multipliers on discretionary policy instruments, and different elasticity estimates. A likelihood ratio test between the ‘generalized’ and a priori restricted models indicated the generalized model was significantly different from the closest ‘linear in the parameters’ model.     

Estimation of food demand in Turkey: method of an almost ideal demand system

In this study, data of the household income and consumption expenditure surveys conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute for 1994 and 2003 years were used; income, price, and cross price elasticities under six aggregated product groups were estimated within the framework of the an almost ideal demand system approach for food expenditures; and estimation of household consumers’ food demand in Turkey was analyzed. According to the findings obtained, it was established that a price-bound change would appear in the food demand, and elasticities were calculated. Expenditures by product groups and price elasticities were obtained, and the product groups were aggregated as bread and cereals; meat, fish, and poultry; milk and dairy products, oil and egg; vegetables and fruits; various fast food and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.     

Restarting a forecasting system when demand suddenly changes

Exponential smoothing is commonly used in automatic forecasting systems. However, when only a small amount of historical data is relevant to future demands, the ad hoc startup methods used in exponential smoothing produce unexpected results. With large data sets, an exponentially smoothed average implicitly weights the data in a declining manner, similar to discounting. This pattern is important in that it minimizes a measure of forecast error. However, restarting with limited data distorts the weighting pattern. A new technique, termed the declining alpha method, is presented and shown to preserve the exponential weight pattern. The key is a formula that changes the smoothing constant each period. Examples are given to illustrate the method and contrast it to other startup techniques.     

我国电子商务行业物流系统建设需求分析

近年来,我国电子商务行业已步入飞速发展时期.中国电子商务研究中心发布的<1997～2009:中国电子商务十二年调查报告>显示,2008年我国电子商务市场交易额达到3.15万亿元;其中,B2B交易额为3万亿元,B2C与C2C网购交易额为1500亿元.     

A censored system of demand analysis to unpacked and prepackaged milk consumption in Turkey

The market driven and globally integrated economy since 1980 in Turkey has boosted milk demand like any other foods. We estimate the impacts of factors affecting households unpacked and prepackaged fluid milk demand in Turkey using a bivariate censored system of demand model. The correlation coefficient from bivariate censored model between these two products indicates that unobservable factors influencing the unpacked fluid milk would likely and significantly lower the consumption of the packed fluid milk for a household. The model also reveals that non-economic demographic factors play crucial roles in determining the quantity demanded of both products, especially the unpacked fluid milk. Both products are substitute one for another and both products are price elastic, suggesting that, for example, more than a change observed in the unpacked milk price would occur in the demand for the unpacked fluid milk with an increase or decrease in the unpacked fluid milk commodity prices. Interestingly, the unpacked fluid milk is an inferior good, while the prepackaged fluid milk is an normal good, indicating that the demand for the packed fluid milk increases with the increased in household income. Milk industries can generate additional revenues by decreasing both product prices.     

An empirical comparison of flexible demand system functional forms

This paper compares the performance of eight frequently used flexible forms that are either (1) locally flexible, (2) ‘effectively globally regular’, or (3) asymptotically globally flexible. Results show that the functions with global properties generally perform better, particularly those models having asymptotic properties. Results, using US consumption data, indicate substitutability among the components of consumption at most data points. There is also some interesting substitution volatility around the time of recessions in the USA. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A note on testing demand homogeneity

In this note we establish the relationship among the three test statistics for testing demand homogeneity and comment on the relative merits of these statistics.     

Bootstrapping rank statistics

The bootstrap, which provides powerful approximations for many classes of statistics, is studied for simple linear rank statistics employing bounded and smooth score functions. To verify consistency we view a rank statistic as a statistic induced by a statistical functional ψ which is evaluated at a pair of dependent signed measures. Thus, we can apply the von Mises method to verify asymptotic results for the bootstrap. The strong consistency of the bootstrap distribution estimator is derived for the bootstrap based on resampling from the original data. Further, the residual bootstrap is studied. The accuracy of the bootstrap approximations for small sample sizes is studied by simulations. The simulations indicate that the bootstrap provides better results than a normal approximation.     

Demography and the demand for housing A reinterpretation of the Mankiw-Weil demand variable

This paper argues that the Mankiw-Weil forecast of a 47% decline in house prices over the period to 2007 is based on a serious misinterpretation of their demand variable. In a time-series context this variable, which comes from a cross-section regression of house values against the age of occupants, is a measure of the adult population, not the demand for housing services or the stock of houses. Econometric work suggests that in addition to adult population, real income, relative prices and real interest rates are important factors determining the aggregate demand for housing. To be credible, forecasts of house prices need to integrate information on demand with information on cost factors and the supply of new houses.     

A model of local demand for education

A careful modeling of the spending behavior of local school districts in New Jersey is presented. The theoretical model relies on the common hypothesis of political competition leading to a median outcome as well as the assumption that school superintendents act as budget maximizers. The model is estimated for a sample of 177 school districts under three different aid formulas. Pooling of the cross sections suggests that the response of school expenditures to changes in variables other than those associated with school aid parameters has remained constant over time. The results are discussed in the context of recent theories regarding the effect of intergovernmental aid on the level of public expenditure.