are household production decisions cooperative evidence on pastoral migration and milk sales from northern kenya market based development efforts frequently create opportunities to generate income from goods previously produced and consumed within the household production within the household is often characterized by a gender and age division of labor market development efforts to improve wellbeing may lead to unanticipated outcomes if household production decisions are noncooperative we develop and test models of household decision making to investigate intrahousehold decision making in a nomadic pastoral setting from kenya our results suggest that household decisions are contested with husbands using migration decisions to resist wives ability to market milk

social cost of environmental quality regulations a general equilibrium analysis the use of cost benefit analysis by federal regulatory agencies has expanded greatly in scope and sophistication unfortunately agencies continue to employ private cost rather than social cost to evaluate environmental quality regulations furthermore general equilibrium impacts and intertemporal effects of regulations are typically not included in the evaluation in this paper we estimate the social cost of environmental quality regulations mandated by the clean air and clean water acts we construct an econometric general equilibrium model of the united states to demonstrate that social cost estimates diverge sharply from private cost estimates we also demonstrate that general equilibrium impacts are significant and pervasive and that intertemporal effects of the regulations heretofore ignored are significant

a diagrammatic exposition of weak complementarity and the willig condition this article provides a graphical explanation for one of the most important restrictions to utility functions used in revealed preference approaches for measuring the demand for public goods and product quality weak complementarity it also describes how the willig condition is an important element along with weak complementarity in measuring hicksian consumer surplus for changes in public goods or quality using marshallian demand curves

productivity health and inequality in the intrahousehold distribution of food in low income countries a model is formulated incorporating linkages among nutrition labor market productivity health heterogeneity and the intrahousehold distribution of food and work activities in a subsistence economy empirical results based on a sample of households from bangladesh indicate that despite considerable intrahousehold disparities in calorie consumption households are averse to inequality furthermore consistent with the model the results also indicate that both the higher level and greater variance in the calories consumed by men relative to women reflect in part the greater participation by men in activities in which productivity is sensitive to health status copyright 1990 by american economic association

interjurisdictional sorting and majority rule an empirical analysis the goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of majority rule and tiebout sorting within a system of local jurisdictions the idea behind the estimation procedure is to investigate whether observed levels of public expenditures satisfy necessary conditions implied by majority rule in a general equilibrium model of residential choice the estimator controls for observed and unobserved heterogeneity among households observed and unobserved characteristics of communities and the potential endogeneity of prices and expenditures as well as the self selection of households into communities of their choice we estimate the structural parameters of the model using data from the boston metropolitan area the empirical findings reject myopic voting models more sophisticated voting models based on utility taking provide a potential explanation of the main empirical regularities

loss aversion in a consumption savings model abstract we propose a model of consumption and saving based on kahneman and tversky s prospect theory that implies a fundamental asymmetry in consumption behavior inconsistent with other models of consumption when there is sufficient income uncertainty a person resists lowering consumption in response to bad news about future income this resistance is greater than the resistance to increasing consumption in response to good news we present empirical evidence from five countries that confirms this behavior

on the choice of funtional form for hedonic price functions this study examines how errors in measuring marginal attribute pric es vary with the form of the hedonic price function in simulations consumers with known utility functions bid for houses with given attributes various forms of the hedonic function are estimated using equilibrium housing prices errors in estimating marginal attribute prices are calculated by comparing each consumer s equilibrium marginal bid vector with the gradient of the hedonic function when all attributes are observed linear and quadratic box cox forms produce lowest mean percentage errors however when some attributes are unobserved or are replaced by proxies linear and linear box cox functions perform best copyright 1988 by mit press

interjurisdictional housing prices in locational equilibrium abstract in this study we discuss how to construct interjurisdictional housing price indexes that are consistent with locational equilibrium theory in theoretical models housing is assumed to be homogeneous which provides problems in empirical analysis we provide conditions that allow us to treat heterogeneous housing as if it were homogeneous the same conditions that allow us to develop a quantity index for housing also imply that we can estimate interjurisdictional housing price indexes using hedonic price regressions locational equilibrium models impose a number of restrictions regarding the co movement of housing price indexes local public goods and mean income levels we propose to use these properties of locational equilibrium models to evaluate the different price index estimates we estimate a variety of price indexes using a unique panel data set of housing transactions in southern california our empirical results by and large support our approach

who benefits more from higher household consumption the intra household allocation of nutrients in china abstract previous studies find that human capital investments in boys are less income elastic than investments in girls attributing this result to favoritism toward boys i show theoretically that it is plausible for more productive or favored household members to have higher income elasticities i then investigate this question empirically utilizing panel data on individual nutrient intake from the china health and nutrition survey chns to analyze how changes in household per capita nutrient intake affect the intra household allocation of nutrients to deal with potential biases due to omitted variables and simultaneity i use measures of rainfall variation as instruments i find that nutritional intakes are more elastic for males especially prime age men than for females and significantly less elastic for the elderly

valuing product attributes using single market data a comparison of hedonic and discrete choice approaches this paper compares via simulation the perfor mance of the multinomial logit and hedonic models in esti mating consumer preferences for product attributes we as cribe preferences over the attributes of houses to a population of consumers and by having them bid for a set of houses calculate equilibrium prices the resulting data are used to estimate the two models we find that the gradient of a linear box cox hedonic price function estimates marginal attribute bids at least as well as a linear logit model although the difference between the two is small when some variables are not observed or are replaced by proxies the logit model however outperforms the he donic model in valuing non marginal attribute changes this is true when the researcher knows the true form of consumers utility functions and when the utility function must be approx irnated

whose fast and whose feast intrahousehold asymmetries in dietary diversity response among east african pastoralists thisarticleexploresintrahouseholddietarydiversityallocationwithinpastoralisthouseholdsineastern africa we estimate income elasticities of dietary diversity for demographic cohorts allowing asymmetric behavior depending on household circumstances we find that household heads disproportionately bear the nutritional burden when household income is below mean while other cohorts disproportionately enjoy the nutritional gains when it is above mean the commonly assumed symmetric framework masks this intrahousehold behavior and produces biased elasticity estimates stochastic dominance tests show adult daughters as better off than other household members in their dietary diversity sons as worse off and little difference between male heads and their wives nutritional welfare is an individual not household characteristic while the average nutrient intake and dietary quality of the household can be one of the largest determinants of the well being of its members nutritional well being is individually experienced therefore development policies targeting nutrition are typically more concerned with their possible implications for individual welfare than for household community or national level aggregates the household though may be one of the most important institutions influencing individual nutritional welfare consequently in order to evaluate income generation and pricing policies it is essential to understand both how households allocate resources to individual members as well as how allocations

how serious is the neglect of intrahousehold inequality in this report the authors develop a framework for assessing the consequences of ignoring intrahousehold inequality in the measurement and analysis of poverty and inequality they apply this framework to data for the philippines and conclude that 1 the result of neglecting intrahousehold inequality will probably be considerable understatement of the levels of poverty and inequality with the philippine data measured levels of inequality and poverty were off 30 percent as a result of ignoring intrahousehold variation and 2 patterns of inequality revealed by household level data are somewhat different from patterns revealed by individual level data but the differences seem not to be dramatic to confirm these results the exercise should be repeated with data from other countries

milk sales and dietary diversity among the maasai in maasai culture responsibilities are traditionally divided between genders men are in charge of grazing and managing the livestock herds women take care of the family administer food supplies and are responsible for milking for them balancing home consumption of milk for the family and for the calves milk sale and food purchase is a major task in this article we first investigate how different milk sales groups vary regarding the use of different food items and the respective quantities consumed by the enkaji i e a maasai subhousehold then we address the commercialization decision and assess the effect of milk sales on the enkaji s food item use and food consumption using the data of maasai enkajijik in the milk catchment area of a milk collection center in ngerengere tanzania we estimate the effects by employing propensity score matching procedures our findings suggest that milk sellers especially those selling to the milk collection center have a more diverse diet in terms of per person consumption the groups are markedly similar therefore we conclude that income generated by milk sales is invested in diet diversification rather than in increasing the quantity of food consumed hence the enkajijik appear not to make use of caloric terms of trade

health and hunger nutrient response to income depending on caloric availability in nepal using data from nlss iii we estimate nutrient income elasticities for macronutrients vitamins and minerals we further allow for differential nutrient demand response to income depending on where a household is in the caloric availability distribution we find that some nutrients are income inelastic indicating that they are necessity goods while others are relatively income elastic we further test and reject equivalent nutrient income elasticities across the caloric availability distribution households in the lowest calorie quintile have highly income elastic nutrient demand leaving them vulnerable to income fluctuations moreover as households meet their first order caloric needs they substitute away from cheap calorie dense staples toward more expensive nutrient dense foods finally for most nutrients households in the highest calorie quintile exhibit more elastic nutrient demand similar to households in the lowest quintile our results suggest that policies aimed at improving income will likely also improve household nutrient availability particularly for the most calorie poor households they further suggest that policies aimed at protecting poor households from negative income shocks will also likely yield nutritional benefits

general equilibrium benefits for environmental improvements projected ozone reductions under epa s prospective analysis for the los angeles air basin abstract this research demonstrates how locational equilibrium models can be used for benefit measurement with the detail required to match epa s benefit analysis for the first prospective analysis using the projected changes in ozone concentrations for 2000 and 2010 together with the sieg et al int econ rev forthcoming estimates for household preferences for housing education and air quality this paper measures general equilibrium willingness to pay for the policy scenarios developed for the prospective study as they relate to households in the los angeles area benefits are evaluated taking account at the household level of initial air quality conditions relocation based on changes in ozone and price changes the framework generalizes the partial equilibrium general equilibrium comparisons available with conventional computable general equilibrium and property capitalization models estimated general equilibrium gains from the policy range from 33 to 2400 annually at a household level in 1990 dollars

asymmetric intrahousehold allocation of calories in china to analyze intrahousehold calorie allocation we propose a new framework that takes into account asymmetric consumption behavior due to liquidity constraints and loss aversion we find that intrahousehold calorie allocation responds asymmetrically to expected declines and increases in household food availability in china compared with previous studies based on symmetric consumption behavior our framework provides stronger evidence of gender bias in intrahousehold calorie allocation among children in urban areas and among elderly people in rural areas and of demographic bias between girls and prime age adults in both urban and rural areas implications for demographic targeting in nutrition programs are discussed copyright 2010 oxford university press

agricultural production dietary diversity and climate variability nonseparable household models outline the links between agricultural production and household consumption yet empirical extensions to investigate the effect of production on dietary diversity and diet composition are limited although a significant literature has investigated the calorie income elasticity abstracting from production this paper provides an empirical application of the nonseparable household model linking the effect of exogenous variation in planting season production decisions via climate variability on household dietary diversity using exogenous variation in degree days rainfall and agricultural capital stocks as instruments the effect of production on household dietary diversity at harvest is estimated the empirical specifications estimate production effects on dietary diversity using both agricultural revenue and crop production diversity significant effects of agricultural revenue and crop production diversity on dietary diversity are estimated the dietary diversity production elasticities imply that a 10 percent increase in agricultural revenue or crop diversity results in a 1 8 percent or 2 4 percent increase in dietary diversity respectively these results illustrate that agricultural income growth or increased crop diversity may not be sufficient to ensure improved dietary diversity increases in agricultural revenue do change diet composition estimates of the effect of agricultural income on share of calories by food groups indicate relatively large changes in diet composition on average a 10 percent increase in agricultural revenue makes households 7 2 percent more likely to consume vegetables and 3 5 percent more likely to consume fish and increases the share of tubers consumed by 5 2 percent

hedonic prices and cost benefit analysis abstract hedonic prices have been used to evaluate the willingness to pay for attributes we reformulate the notion of hedonic price from a composite price on housing to a unit price on traded quantities in conformity with long run competitive equilibrium theory this formulation was suggested but not developed by rosen j polit econ 82 no 1 1974 34 35 by first characterizing an efficient allocation of consumers to space we show that hedonic unit prices can be understood as a bid rent function which supports the efficient allocation this is despite the fact that the lots over which consumers bid are themselves endogenous we show that unit hedonic prices reveal preferences in a manner different from composite hedonic expenditures

the intrahousehold demand for nutrients in rural south india individual estimates fixed effects and permanent income good estimates of nutrient intake responses to prices and income are very useful for the evaluation of the numerous efforts to improve nutrition in many developing countries through pricesubsidy and income generation policies we discuss three problems in standard estimates of these responses and then illustrate their implications for nutrient demand relations for a poor sample from rural south india 1 intra household nutrient allocations usually are ignored in this case nutrient intakes for females systematically have algebraically lower price elasticities than do those for males which may leave the females particularly vulnerable at times of food shortages 2 unobserved fixed effects may bias the estimates of responses to observed variables in this case not only the community fixed effects on which the previous literature has focused but also household and individual fixed effects are important failure to control for them results in substantial algebraically upward biases in many estimated price responses 3 most previous studies use current instead of permanent income which a priori may account for the low estimated income elasticities in this case however the use of permanent income does not change the conclusion that the nutrient intakes responses to income are quite small

consumption smoothing and portfolio rebalancing the effects of adjustment costs abstract a household s response to income and return shocks depends on the costs of portfolio adjustment in particular the extent of portfolio rebalancing and consumption smoothing are influenced by the presence of non convex portfolio adjustment costs suppose bonds can be adjusted costlessly while adjustments to stock accounts entail adjustment costs due to these portfolio adjustment costs the household demands both stocks and bonds a household can buffer some income fluctuations without incurring adjustment costs and engage in costly portfolio rebalancing less frequently using the estimated preference parameters and portfolio adjustment costs the response to income and return shocks is nonlinear and reflects the interaction of portfolio rebalancing and consumption smoothing

the safety first expected utility model experimental evidence and economic implications abstract roy s roy a 1952 safety first and the holding of assets econometrica 20 3 431 449 safety first criterion advocates the minimization of the probability of outcomes below a certain disaster level this paper examines safety first theoretically and experimentally we find that safety first plays a crucial role in decision making inducing choices that cannot be explained by and even contradict risk aversion prospect theory and loss aversion in general yet safety first alone cannot explain individual choice therefore we propose an expected utility safety first eu sf model where decisions are made based on a weighted average of the safety first criterion and standard expected utility maximization we experimentally estimate these relative weights and discuss their economic implications