Determinants of demand for green products: An application to eco-label demand for fish in Europe

In this paper, we confront the theoretical motivations of the consumption of eco-friendly products and the factors influencing the European perceptions regarding the fact that “fish caught using an environmentally friendly technique may carry a special label”. We take advantage of the recent integration of non-economic elements in the microeconomic analysis of consumers' behavior in order to highlight the factors leading to their demand for green products. Thanks to an original European survey on seafood product carried out on more than 5000 consumers, we test the influence of intrinsic motivation, information, localization and socio-economic factors on the demand for an eco-label for fish.Our results show a significant connection between the desire for eco-labeling and seafood features, especially the freshness of the fish, the geographical origin of the fish and the wild vs farmed origin of the fish. Moreover, we prove the major role played by the fish price. We also demonstrate that the ecological issue regarding fisheries is highly connected to consumer information, intrinsic motivation and socio-economic status: the typical “green fish consumer” is a young woman, well educated, well informed on the state of marine resources and not very trusting of the regulation of the fisheries. Consumers who are aware of the importance of marine resource preservation have the same profile.     

Retesting symmetry and homogeneity in a cointegrated demand system with bootstrapping: The case of meat demand in Greece

A small Almost Ideal Demand System is estimated for Greek meat consumption using the Johansen procedure in conjunction with parametric bootstrapping and Bartlett corrections. Asymptotic Wald and likelihood ratio tests broadly support the predicted number of cointegrating relationships but reject symmetry and homogeneity. Bootstrapping and Bartlett corrections give support to symmetry and homogeneity but give less support for the predicted number of cointegrating relationships.Jel classification: C32 D12First version received: September 2001/Final version received: March 2003     

The US retail demand for fish products: an application of the almost ideal demand system

The main objective is to address the limitations of past US fish demand research through the development of a variation of the almost ideal demand system model for disaggregate fish products at the retail level. Price and expenditure elasticities, as well as elasticities of substitution between fish products and other protein commodities, determined from this work may be used in the context of fisheries management and market development and promotion. Results indicate that with the exception of shellfish, demand for the various fish products is relatively inelastic. Cross-price elasticities are generally moderate while expenditure elasticities are large and positive for fresh fish and shellfish. Demographic effects, especially geographical division, season, race, occupation, age–sex household composition, and price–income interaction, as a proxy for quality, are highly significant variables.     

Price determination and dynamic adjustments: An inverse demand system approach to meat products in the United States

In this study the process of retail meat price determination is depicted in the form of an inverse demand system taking into consideration the dynamic adjustments present in monthly consumption data. The general dynamic framework identifies both long run and short run effects in a systematic manner and allows direct estimation of the long run price and scale flexibilities that are consistent with theory. The empirical application based on monthly U.S. meat products data provides reasonable and promising results.The authors are senior econometrician, Department of Risk Management, TRS, American Express Co., Phoenix, and assistant professor, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, respectively. The work was performed when the first author was an assistant research scientist at the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Department of Economics, Iowa State University, Ames. Journal Paper No. J-15784 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa. Project No. 3109.     

Measuring Household Welfare: Problems and Pitfalls with Household Surveys in Central Asia

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Modeling male and female employment policy in Greece from local data

The article analyzes the population shares of employed, unemployed and other men and women by utilizing the 2001 Greek Census data collected at the municipal level. It departs from other studies on the subject by (a) considering not one but all economic activities simultaneously, (b) trying to ameliorate through space the common, yet often overlooked, regression misspecification problem, and (c) resorting to the use of fresh spatial arguments, as opposed to conventional regional or sub-regional regressors. In particular, the demographic, educational, and other conventional, available independent variables are supplemented with territorial arguments constructed from the inter-municipal functional linkages and the patterns of the residuals. By isolating the effects of the spatial and non-spatial factors driving economic activity, the article brings to light sub-regional and cross-regional patterns that might otherwise go undetected, and provides a better understanding of the internal heterogeneity of the country. This facilitates the formulation of (i) better-targeted employment and unemployment policy interventions aiming to treat disparities at the local and micro-regional level, alongside (ii) broader, nation-wide interventions.     

Estimation of an effectively globally regular demand system: An application to United States meat consumption

A combination of Cooper and McLaren's modified almost ideal demand system (AIDS) and Moschini's semiflexible AIDS specification gives an effective globally regular demand system. Using the United States meat price and consumption data, the effectively globally regular demand system was estimated and compared to Cooper and McLaren's modified AIDS. The Likelihood Dominance Criterion showed that Cooper and McLaren's modified AIDS was actually better model than the effectively globally regular demand system proposed. The reason may be due to the fact that the violation of the curvature conditions is not significant for the given data. First Version Received: September 1998/Final Version Received: April 2001     

An application of maximum entropy estimation: the demand for meat in the United Kingdom

In many econometric studies of demand relationships the design matrix is frequently subject to severe collinearity. In this paper the Generalized Maximum Entropy methodology is introduced and used to estimate a set of demand relationships. The ability of Generalized Maximum Entropy to estimate economic relationships that are typically subject to a high degree of collinearity among the explanatory variables, thus potentially causing traditional methods of estimation to be unreliable, is explained. The results derived by this alternative method of estimation, for a UK meat demand data set, are analysed and examined. The potential for this emerging estimation methodology is discussed.     

Modeling corner solutions with panel data: Application to the industrial energy demand in France

This paper provides an empirical application of Lee and Pitts (1986) approach to the problem of corner solutions in the case of panel data. This model deals with corner solutions in a manner consistent with the firm behavior theory while controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. In this model, energy demand at industrial plant level is the result of a discrete choice of the type of the energy to be consumed and a continuous choice that defines the level of demand. The econometric model is, essentially, an endogenous switching regime model which requires the evaluation of multivariate probability integrals. We estimate the random effect model by maximum likelihood using a panel of industrial French plants from the paper and pulp industry. We calculate empirical price elasticities of energy demand from the model. We also study the effects on energy demand of an environmental policy aimed at reducing CO₂ emissions. The authors are grateful to the Institut Français de eEnergie for its financial support and to the SESSI for providing the data. We would like to thank two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions. the usual disclaimer applies.     

A globally flexible,quadratic almost ideal demand system: an application to demand for meats and fish in Taiwan

A new demand system, called a globally flexible, quadratic almost ideal demand system (GF–QUAIDS), integrates both the quadratic Engel curve and the Fourier series. This novel GF–QUAIDS model is applied to study the demand for meats and fish in Taiwan. Empirical results show that the GF–QUAIDS fits the data well and that, by using the likelihood ratio test, its nested models are rejected, including the locally flexible functional form and the linear Engel curve. Nevertheless, other empirical model-selection measures indicate that the GF–QUAIDS can be as good as its famous nested models such as the AIDS, QUAIDS and GF–AIDS.     

Meeting the demand: An estimation of potential future greenhouse gas emissions from meat production

Current production processes for meat products have been shown to have a significant impact on the environment, accounting for between 15% and 24% of current greenhouse gas emissions. Meat consumption has been increasing at a fantastic rate and is likely to continue to do so into the future. If this demand is to be met, technology used in production in the form of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) will need to be expanded. This paper estimates future meat consumption and discusses the potential aggregate environmental impact of this production if the use of CAFOs is expanded. I first separate meat into beef, chicken and pig products and estimate the elasticities associated with each product in order to forecast the world demand for meat. Using research on the environmental impact of food production in the US, which uses one of the most efficient CAFO processes in the world, I then calculate the total potential greenhouse emissions of this meat production and discuss the impact of these consumption patterns. I find that, under an expanded CAFO system, meat production in the future will still be a large producer of greenhouse gases, accounting for up to 6.3% of current greenhouse gas emissions in 2030.     

Hardened Budget Constraints in Romania: An Approach by CGE Modeling

This study estimates the effects of hardened budget constraints on the Romanian economy and tests a market price-based policy by removing state subsidies. As most subsidies are granted to and through the energy sector, the analysis focuses on energy issues. A general equilibrium approach is used for the empirical application. The results fit the theory and show that removing subsidies contributes to eliminating distortions: energy intensity declines, the Gini coefficient drops and general welfare improves. The main effects of applying a cost recovery policy are the improvement of agents' self-financing capacity and of their investment structure. Surprisingly, production cost falls in all sectors, since cross-subsidies are removed.     

Relative Living Standards in New Market Economies: Evidence from Central Asian Household Surveys

We examine household data from the Central Asian successor states to the Soviet Union to analyze how living standards are determined in newly established market economies. Three variables, namely location, children, and university education, are consistently significant across all four countries studied and play the largest role in determining household expenditure. The first two are of special significance to Central Asia, with its relative economic backwardness and high birth rate, but the importance of high-level general-purpose education appears to be a ubiquitous but underappreciated factor. Higher returns to education were expected in a market economy, but few observers distinguish between types of education; in the shift from central planning people with high-level general-purpose education have been best able to take advantage of new opportunities, while narrower technical education, by contrast, has left many with obsolete skills yielding zero returns in the market. J. Comp. Econ., June 2002 30(4), pp. 683–708. Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235; and School of Economics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia. © 2002 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D1, D31, O12, P36.     

Decomposition analysis of consumers' demand changes: an application to Greek consumption data

A decomposition analysis for consumer demand functions is developed. Changes in Marshallian demand or expenditure shares functions over time are decomposed into a total substitution effect, an income effect, and a habit effect. This framework is applied to post-war Greek consumption patterns through a habit persistence version of the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS). It is found that for all commodity categories (i.e., food, beverages and tobacco, footwear and clothing, settling and housing, and others) the income effect was the main driving force in explaining changes in both quantity demanded and expenditure shares, followed by habit and total substitution effects.     

Revisiting residential demand for electricity in Greece: new evidence from the ARDL approach to cointegration analysis

This article re-examines the long-run and short-run determinants of the aggregate residential demand for electricity in Greece using data spanning the period 1964–2006 and the recently advanced ARDL cointegrating method (Pesaran, J Appl Econ 16:289–326, 2001) that has not been hitherto applied to Greek data. The results of the ARDL method combined with the (Johansen, J Econ Dyn Control 12:231–254, 1988) cointegration method show the presence of an equilibrium relationship among the variables involved. These findings may shed new light on the contemplation of more effective energy policies with respect to electricity.     

A methodology for constructing a financial systemic stress index: An application to Greece

The paper develops a financial systemic stress index (FSSI) for Greece. We present a novel methodology for constructing and evaluating a systemic stress index which i) adopts the suggestion of Hollo et al. (2012) [“CISS — A ‘Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress’ in the Financial System” ECB working paper] to incorporate time-varying correlations between different market segments, but uses a multivariate GARCH approach which is able to capture abrupt changes in correlations, shown to be a prerequisite for correctly identifying financial crises, ii) utilizes both market and balance sheet data which is a novel feature for systemic stress indicators and iii) evaluates the FSSI utilizing the results of a survey, conducted among financial experts, in order to construct a benchmark chronology of financial crises for Greece, which in turn is used to investigate whether changes in the FSSI are good leading indicators for financial crises. The results show that the FSSI is able to provide a precise periodization of crises. Our findings suggest that accurate depiction of the systematic nature of stress is pivotal in order to provide proper policy guidance with respect to financial crisis identification.     

Modeling intertemporal general equilibrium: An application to Austrian commercial policy

We present a multi-sector CGE model featuring forward looking investiment and savings behavior within an intertemporal optimization framework. Thus, the model captures several of the intertemporal effects of commercial policy that have been stressed by recent literature on current account adjustment. We argue that pursuing a simulation approach in addressing these issues is warranted by certain limitations and ambiguities of the analytical literature. In addition to presenting the details of the model structure, the paper addresses calibration issues relating to intertemporal parameters. The model is calibrated to a microconsistent data set for the Austrian economy. Finally, the paper features an application of the model to a simple tariff liberalization scenario.     

An application of dynamic specifications of factor demand equations to interfuel substitution in US industrial energy demand

In a recent paper, Jones (1995) [A dynamic analysis of the interfuel substitution in US industrial energy demand. J. Bus. Econ. Stat. 13 (4), 459–465] presents a dynamic analysis of interfuel substitution in US industry energy demand. The author concludes that a dynamic linear logit model is ‘superior' to a comparable dynamic translog model. The latter in fact violates concavity conditions whilst the logit formulation does not. This paper shows first of all that the dynamic formulation of the translog used in Jones (1995) is mis-specified. In fact, a parsimonious error-correction model (ECM) ‘dominates' alternative dynamic formulations, amongst which the partial adjustment mechanism used by the author. The ECM is able to generate optimal estimates of long-run and short-run elasticities, and it satisfies the concavity conditions of the cost function. Further, the theoretical framework used in this paper is the one recently proposed by Urga (1996) [On the identification problem in testing dynamic specification of factor demand equations. Econ. Lett. 52, 205–210] and Allen and Urga (1998) [Derivation and estimation of interrelated factor demands from dynamic cost function. Forthcoming in Economica]. It allows one to identify all coefficients (long-run and short-run) of the dynamic formulation via the joint estimation of the ‘effective' (short-run) cost function and the set of factor demand equations. This strategy solves, amongst other things, the parameter identification problem within the set of demand equations themselves, an issue which was originally noted by Anderson and Blundell (1982) [Estimation and hypothesis testing in dynamic singular equation systems. Econometrica, 1559–1571], re-addressed by Friesen (1992) [Testing dynamic specification of factor demand equations for US manufacturing. Rev. Econ. Stat. LXXIV (2), 240–250] and, more recently, by Urga (1996) and Allen and Urga (1998).     

Gasoline demand in the OECD: An application of pooling and testing procedures

This study utilizes a pooled inter-country data set, finding the long-run price-elasticity falls in the range ?0.55 to ?0.9, depending on the choice of pooled estimators. The estimators included the OLS, within-, and between-country estimators, plus five feasible GLS estimators. Even allowing for a ten-year distributed lag on price to reflect changes in auto-efficiency characteristics, the within-country estimator yields appreciably more inelastic estimates than did the O:S estimator, which was heavily influenced by the between- or inter-country variation. This difference raises intriguing questions for future research.     

Goodness-of-fit techniques for count data models: an application to the demand for dental care in Spain

This paper compares the practical performance of alternative goodness-of-fit techniques for count data models in the context of a study of the determinants of demand for dental care in Spain. We apply alternative goodness-of-fit techniques to different specifications. In particular, we implement recently proposed specification tests which are consistent in the direction of general nonparametric alternatives. The analysis suggests that a negative binomial model is an appropriate specification for dental care demand. Dental health and income are identified as important predictors of individuals' behavior. First version received: April 2000/Final version received: March 2001