Exploring Metropolitan Housing Price Volatility

This paper uses GARCH models and a panel VAR model to analyze possible time variation of the volatility of single-family home value appreciation and the interactions between the volatility and the economy, using a large quarterly data set that covers 277 MSAs in the U.S. from 1990:1 to 2002:2. We find evidence of time varying volatility in about 17% of the MSAs. Using volatility series estimated with GARCH models, we find that the volatility is Granger-caused by the home appreciation rate and GMP growth rate. On the other hand, the volatility Granger-causes the personal income growth rate but the impact is not economically significant.     

THE LABOUR RESPONSE OF QUASI-SUBSISTENT VILLAGE CRAFTSMEN IN RURAL PAPUA NEW GUINEA*

In this study of labour-leisure choice, a labour supply equation is derived from a Stone-Geary utility function and extended to incorporate several 'non-economic' variables. Such variables are made functions of the 'minimum subsistence' quantities which characterise the standard Stone-Geary model. The model is then estimated on cross-sectional data obtained from a field survey of quasi-subsistent piece rate producer-consumers living and working in a number of New Guinean villages. Approximately two-thirds of the observed variation in the weekly work commitment of the sampled workers was explained by the model. The response of cash work commitment to variation in earning rates was found, on average, to be highly inelastic and slightly negative in direction. The econometric approach adopted herein is offered as an alternative to the less formal analyses of Melanesian labour response hitherto undertaken by economic anthropologists.     

Sector priorities in meeting basic needs: some statistical evidence

This paper looks at what kinds of relationships exist between different indicators of basic needs satisfaction in order to make some general statements about linkages and priorities - for example, to see whether countries that have done better than average in meeting basic needs (i.e. have higher than average life expectancies) also have above-average performance in each of the basic needs sectors (primary education, basic health care, nutrition, clean water, adequate sanitation, shelter), or only in some of them. Rather than examining the experience of one particular country, this paper examines statistical indicators for the basic needs progress and basic needs inputs, constructed from World Bank data covering 86 developing countries. The results of four different methodologies confirm a high association between literacy and life expectancy. From this evidence, I suggest that basic education should have high priority in any program of meeting basic needs.     

Generic properties of simple Bergson-Samuelson welfare functions

Methods of transversality theory are introduced to determine the generic properties of a simple non-collegial preference function σ, whose domain is the class of ordinal utility profiles on a smooth manifold W of policy alternatives. When the dimension of W is sufficiently large, it is shown that (i) the set of local optima of σ is generically empty, and (ii) the local cycle set of σ is generically dense.     

Continuous economies with a finite set of equilibria

This paper extends the results of G. Debreu's ‘Economies with a Finite Set of Equilibria’, within the context of the finite dimensional space of economies used therein, to the case where demand functions are assumed only to be continuous and to satisfy a certain technical condition. This condition, involving the concept of approximate limit, does not even require that the function be anywhere differentiable. Our main result is that the complement of the set of economies with a finite set of equilibrium prices has Lebesgue measure zero, although it need not be closed and in fact, may very well be dense.