INCOME ELASTICITIES OF DEMANDS FOR FOODS IN GREAT BRITAIN

This paper describes analysis of data from the National Food Survey to determine the influences of household income and composition on household demand for foods in 1974, 1979, 1980 and 1982. The paper focuses on fats, cheese and carcase meats. The analysis uses household level data, regarding zero expenditures as arising because of infrequent purchasing and the expenditure-income relationship used in the Almost Ideal Demand Model. This is in contrast with the analysis reported by the National Food Survey Committee which uses a constant elasticity model and averaged income and expenditure data.     

Memoryless Reigns of the “Sons of Heaven”

Human lifetimes have increasing failure rates; as people age (beyond early childhood) they are more likely to die. Viewing the succession of Chinese Emperors as a statistical ensemble we show that, unlike lifetimes, their reigns ceased at a constant rate for over two millennia, unaffected by elapsed time. In fact reign lengths of the “Sons of Heaven”, as the Chinese Emperors were known, followed a memoryless exponential distribution with a 10-year half-life. Becoming emperor not only influenced the duration of remaining life, but length of rule was independent of age at ascent. We propose an explanation for the observed exponentiality using asymptotic results from the theory of stationary stochastic processes.     

FINANCIAL LIBERALISATION, CONSUMPTION AND WEALTH EFFECTS IN SEVEN OECD COUNTRIES

We estimate the impact of financial liberalisation on consumption in seven major industrial countries, and find a marked shift in behaviour, notably a decline in short‐run income elasticities and a rise in short‐run wealth and interest rate elasticities. A corollary is that consumption equations estimated over both pre‐ and post‐liberalisation regimes may be misleading, and either a form of testing as presented here or a shortening of the sample period may be appropriate for accurate forecasting and simulation.     

The Economic Puzzle of Oskar Schindler:

ABSTRACT The popular film Schindler's List is a cinematic portrayal of Oskar Schindler , the German industrialist who rescued more than a thousand of his Jewish workers during the Holocaust . While the film has generated much debate over the character's motivations, the historical Oskar Schindler can be viewed as an economic actor who made several choices. Examined together, these various choices make an excellent case for amenity potential , a concept from the work of Harold Demsetz which explains how one's control over a firm's resources gives one opportunities to use those resources for whatever purposes one sees fit, subject to legal and market constraints . Applying amenity potential to the economic puzzle of Schindler's choices reveals how and why he was able to make various choices which followed the letter of the law in Nazi Society, while violating its spirit.     

Analysts' Forecasts of German Firms' Earnings: a Comparative Analysis

This paper examines analysts' forecasts of the annual earnings per share of German firms over the period of February 1987 to December 1995. The German case is particularly interesting as the accounting and institutional structures vary from those in more thoroughly researched markets such as the U.S. or U.K. The paper therefore considers the features of the German forecasting environment which distinguish it from the Anglo-American model, and whether these might be reflected in forecasting performance. The results for Germany show that the accuracy of analysts' forecasts improves as the forecast horizon shortens, are less accurate than a naive prediction model over longer horizons, and contain a positive bias. When the results for Germany are contrasted with the results for the U.K., as reported in a recent paper, they are found to be a little less accurate but the positive bias is greater in U.K. forecasts. Taken overall the forecasting process in Germany appears to be less efficient than in the U.K., but this may be due to the distinct features of the German forecasting environment.