estimating residential water demand under multi part tariffs using aggregate data using a new model formulation and data from a sample of colorado utilities we investigated the price specification controversy marginal price versus average revenue when estimating residential water demand the improved statistical fit using average

energy substitution effect on transport sector of pakistan a trans log production function approach abstract transport sector of pakistan is one of the highest fossil fuel consumption and carbon dioxide co2 emission sector as a key user of fossil fuel energy pakistan s transport sector has created many problems i e noise air pollution co2 emissions and environmental problem in this study trans log production function model for pakistan s transport sector is established and input factors of labor capital and energy consumption are comprised the output elasticity of an individual input elasticity between a pair of factors and elasticity of substitution between input factors are analyzed to manage the multicollinearity issue ridge regression is applied at different values of k from 1991 to 2018 the outcomes show that output elasticities and a pair of input factor s elasticities are increasing the elasticities of substitutions between labor energy consumption and capital energy consumption show higher outcomes because of the more elevated amount of substitution elasticities the substitution elasticity between labor and capital starts from 0 9797 to 0 9326 with slightly decreasing trend the outcomes suggest that maximum output can be achieved by increasing capital and energy technologies by allocating the maximum capital in the transport industry energy saving technologies substitution between energy and capital and substitution among capital labor can enhance environmental protection in the above s view function the present study estimates the level of energy saving and co2 emissions reduction under the different scenarios from 2015 to 2018 the policy suggestions of the results are given below

determinants of household electricity demand a two stage probit approach considerable interest on the part of policy makers in both the public and private sectors has spawned numerous studies of the determinants of residential electricity demand as a result of increased attention given to the possibility of adjusting household electricity consumption patterns through price manipulation as in the various peak load pricing experiments particular emphasis has been placed on obtaining an accurate estimate of the price elasticity of demand unfortunately ols applied to the conventional linear or log linear demand specification is biased and inconsistent when the sample includes households that face declining block rate schedules the inconsistency results from the fact that in the presence of declining block rates observed marginal price is a stochastic regressor that is negatively correlated with the regression error term some researchers have suggested that consistent ols estimation can be achieved by merely respecifying the demand equation to include particular combinations of marginal price average price rate of decline of the price schedule and real income corrected for intra marginal price differences 1 7 8 others realizing the futility of such an approach have developed and applied instrumental variable iv techniques 4 6 11 these iv methods however all involve an artificial linearization of the rate schedule which produces spurious negative correlation between the price variable and the random error term as a result such iv methods tend to overcompensate for actual correlation consequently the iv estimated coefficients of the various demand determinants will exhibit biases opposite in sign to those of their ols counterparts for example in the presence of declining block rates ols tends to overestimate the price elasticity of demand in absolute value while iv methods produce elasticity estimates that are downward biased a two stage probit tsp method developed by terza and welch 10 is not subject to the bias that plagues iv methods because tsp does not require a linear approximation to the rate schedule instead the discrete and discontinuous nature of household responses to declining block pricing is captured by incorporating an ordinal probit model that is based on a theory of consumer choice in the present paper a linear electricity demand model is estimated using the tsp ols and iv methods to demonstrate the effectiveness of the tsp method

a note on price perception in water demand models a household s decision to acquire price knowledge is endogenous in the demand for utility services and may affect elasticities and consumption levels a simultaneous equation model with endogenous switching is developed to evaluate the effects of price

estimating elasticities of substitution with nested ces production functions where do we stand abstract prompt by an increasing interest by climate change modelers a rich literature estimating elasticities of substitution in a nested ces production framework has recently developed this article reviews such literature we critically describe the nesting structures estimation approaches data sources and aggregation econometric techniques and types of substitution elasticities used by previous literature to offer a comprehensive description of the various options available to a researcher attempting this estimation we also provide suggestions for potential improvements to the estimation process in particular we warn researchers to use ces production functions with caution in empirical applications given their restrictive build in assumptions

estimation of substitution possibilities between water and other production inputs the traditional approach to measuring the demand for water by industries relies upon fixed water use coefficients water supply planners base decisions about system expansion partly upon fixed coefficients applied to projected levels of industrial growth among the restrictive assumptions implied by this approach is that producers are generally unresponsive to the relative price of water compared with other factors earlier studies focused on industry by industry assessments of present and potential water use technologies and the possibilities for substituting other productive inputs for water most of these studies are economic engineering in form thompson and young and russell are analyses of the steam electric generating industry and the petroleum refining and petrochemical industry respectively because they used linear programming techniques their results must be interpreted cautiously the flexible functional forms which have become

examining the differences in self and publicly supplied firms water demands this research examines the fac tors influencing the decision made by manufac turing firms regarding their source of water sup ply and tests whether self supplied firms exhibit demands for intake water different from firms supplied by a public utility the first stage of the estimation model involves a probit analysis of the supply source choice and the second stage employs a regression model with endogenous switching to estimate the demand equations for the two types offirms results indicate that eco nomic factors such as annual connection fees influence the supply source decision jel q25

the econometrics of kinked budget constraints in the last several years a branch of applied econometrics has developed which is devoted to the development of techniques for the estimation of demand and other functions when the budget constraint is piecewise linear or kinky that is when the constraint consists of a number of segments joined together at kink points such constraints most frequently arise from government tax and transfer programs for example the federal income tax imposes a piecewise linear schedule by the use of constant marginal tax rates within brackets a problem analyzed by hausman 1981 the payroll tax in the social security system likewise generates a kinked schedule inasmuch as the marginal tax rate on earnings is zero above a certain earnings maximum federal and state transfer programs for the poor result in piecewise linear constraints because transfer benefits are taxed in the sense of a negative income tax as income rises and because that tax rate falls to zero at the kink point where an individual or family loses eligibility for the benefit altogether many government transfer programs impose additional nonlinearities by altering this tax rate by discrete amounts over the range of positive benefits as well but kinked constraints sometimes arise in nongovernment contexts a well known example being the block pricing schedule commonly set by utilities and volume discounting in general kinked budget constraints create two difficulties that have several interesting facets one difficulty is that changes in tax and transfer schedules can have unexpected effects that can be exactly the opposite in sign to those expected from economic theory examples of this phenomenon are given below the second difficulty that with which this paper is mostly concerned relates to the implications of kinked budget

modeling commercial demand for water exploring alternative prices instrumental variables and heterogeneity in this paper we introduce a previously unused instrumental variable to estimate the elasticity of commercial water demand for firms served by a large municipal utility we then present evidence that firms are more responsive to one period lagged average price than marginal price finally we find notable differences in elasticity among different categories of businesses the findings in this paper are particularly important as water utilities consider how to maintain revenue while coping with limited water supplies and increasing commercial demand

reducing the cost of demand uncertainty through accurate response to early sales traditionally fashion products have incurred high losses due to stockouts and inventory obsolence because long lead times coupled with a concentrated selling season force all or at least most production to be committed before demand information is available under a quick response system lead times are shortened sufficiently to allow a greater portion of production to be scheduled in response to initial demand we model and analyze the decisions required under quick response and give a method for estimating the demand probability distributions needed in our model we applied these procedures with a major fashion skiwear firm and found that cost relative to the current informal response system was reduced by enough to increase profits by 60 relative to the cost that would have been incurred if no response were used optimized response reduces cost by enough to roughly quadruple profits

alternate price specifications for estimating residential water demand with fixed fees using a new model formulation and data from a sample of colorado utilities we investigated the price specification controversy marginal price versus average revenue when estimating residential water demand the improved statistical fit using average revenue as the price variable was shown to be an artifact of the unitary elastic identity created when monthly rate schedules contain a fixed fee when the fixed fee was purged from the data average price was not significant but marginal price remained significant in the preferred double log marginal price model estimated price elasticity was 0 3 and conservation programs had no significant effect on water use

a discrete continuous choice approach to residential water demand under block rate pricing reply waldman is quite correct in noting that the microeconomic theory of block rate pricing in hewitt and hanemann hh 1995 is given for the general case of a k block rate structure whereas the econometric theory is largely confined to the case of exactly two blocks the extension in waldman to the more general case of k blocks is correct although the extension itself could be even more general if it addressed the nonnegativity of demand as is demonstrated below that no apparent attention was paid to the nonnegativity of demand in hh may be attributed to the fact that the need to do so was negated by a fortuitous assumption in the earlier work although that assumption that the errors are multiplicative and lognormally distributed was only maintained and not tested in hh i now estimate two models with the more common assumptions of linear demand and additive and normally distributed errors both with and without a modification for

an empirical survey of residential water demand modelling abstract the increased reliance on demand side management policies as an urban water consumption management tool has stimulated considerable debate among economists water utility managers regulators consumer interest groups and policymakers in turn this has fostered an increasing volume of literature aimed at providing best practice estimates of price and income elasticities quantifying the impact of non price water restrictions and gauging the impact of non discretionary environmental factors affecting residential water demand this paper provides a synoptic survey of empirical residential water demand analyses conducted in the last 25 years both model specification and estimation and the outcomes of the analyses are discussed

the effect of the german and british environmental taxation reforms a simple assessment abstract this article implements a simple econometric approach to assess the effect of the environmental tax reforms introduced in germany and the uk despite the very simple econometric approach adopted in this paper in the case of the energy demand our results do not differ markedly from those obtained from complicated multi sectoral econometric models in the case of the labour demand our results differ from the estimates obtained from econometric models where the employment level is not directly influenced by the energy price on the other hand our results are more similar to those obtained from models where the level of employment is directly influenced by the energy price confirming the findings of bosquet 2000 environmental tax reform does it work a survey of the empirical evidence ecological economics 34 19 32 and oecd 2004 environment and employment an assessment working party on national environmental policy oecd paris we conclude that environmental tax reforms can deliver substantial reductions in energy consumption while having small effects on the level of employment effect which can be positive depending on the size of the reduction in the labour costs and the value of cross price elasticities

price and income elasticities of residential and industrial electricity demand in the european union this study examines the short and long run price and income elasticities of residential and industrial electricity demand in the european union between 1996 and 2016 instrumental variable models using the between estimator as well as dynamic panel models are employed to present robust estimates and to assess the impact of different methodologies on the reported elasticities the long run price elasticity of residential electricity consumption is estimated between 0 53 and 0 56 these elasticities are more inelastic than that of industrial electricity use which is reported between 0 75 and 1 01 the choice of different econometric methodologies has only moderate impact on the estimates while long run residential income elasticity estimates are moderately inelastic and estimated around 0 61 industrial electricity use tends to be closely tied to income with elasticities between 0 76 and 1 08 electricity demand in all sectors is highly price and income inelastic in the short run additionally population density temperatures and policy measures also influence sectoral electricity use the above estimates can aid the design of european energy and environmental policy

estimation of residential water demand with imperfect price perception using data from a household survey carried out in the french overseas territory of reunion we investigate the price of drinking water perceived by households faced with an increasing multi step pricing scheme to this purpose we use an improved version of the method introduced by shin 1985 to estimate the demand for residential water when consumers are imperfectly informed about their pricing schedule the empirical results suggest that reunion households underestimate the price of water and thus consume more than what is economically rational providing information to households about the marginal price of water may be an innovative means of inducing them to respond to pricing policies designed to promote water conservation

factor substitution in u s manufacturing does plant size matter we use micro data for 10 412 u s manufacturing plants to estimate the degrees of factor substitution by industry and by plant size we find that 1 capital labor energy and materials are substitutes in production and 2 the degrees of substitution among inputs are quite similar across plant sizes in a majority of industries two important implications of these findings are that 1 small plants are typically as flexible as large plants in factor substitution consequently economic policies such energy conservation policies that result in rising energy prices would not cause negative effects on either large or small u s manufacturing plants and 2 since energy and capital are found to be substitutes the 1973 energy crisis is unlikely to be a significant factor contributing to the post 1973 productivity slowdown

price knowledge in household demand for utility services a household s decision to acquire price knowledge is endogenous in the demand for utility services and may affect elasticities and consumption levels a simultaneous equation model with endogenous switching is developed to evaluate the effects of price knowledge and other sources of heterogeneity results indicate informed households were more responsive to average and marginal price signals informed households also use less water but this is due to heterogeneity rather than price knowledge controlling for heterogeneity price knowledge actually increases monthly water usage the implications of accounting for differences in price knowledge in utility demand modeling and demand management policy are discussed

input measurement and productivity growth in japanese and u s manufacturing in their article in this review j r norsworthy and david h malmquist 1983 have presented interesting comparisons of productivity growth in the japanese and u s manufacturing sectors their paper starts with the discussion of whether the conventional value added or gnp measurement of output is an appropriate framework for productivity analysis some confusion frequently arises as to whether a production function should be structured on the basis of gross output or value added output separability is a pivotal concept in the analysis of production structures especially in relation to the existence of a real value added aggregate it is well known that there are two types of separability which pertain to the existence of a real value added function weak local separability and strong partial separability the practical advantage of distinguishing these two different forms of separability is that the double deflation method in conventional gnp accounting is justified only when strong partial separability holds using the approximate separability tests of michael denny and melvyn fuss 1977 norsworthy and malmquist have shown that a value added aggregate does not exist in either u s or japanese manufacturing and they conclude that the appropriate output measure for joint investigation of both countries for purposes of productivity analysis is gross output p 953 the purpose of this comment is to indicate some deficiencies in norsworthy and malmquist s analysis in particular it will be demonstrated that the conditions for weak local and strong partial separability in norsworthy and malmquist s paper are incorrectly formulated and as a consequence their findings may not be used as conclusive evidence that a gross output measure is an appropriate basis for the analysis of capital labor substitutability and productivity growth in japan and the united states

structural optimization and carbon taxation in china s commercial sector abstract given china s economic transformation and upgrading process the green development of commercial sector is more and more important based on the trans log cost function this paper calculates the inter factor and inter fuel substitution effects in china s commercial sector from 1980 to 2016 besides the paper further analyzes the driving factors of the dynamic changes in energy intensity and the impact of carbon taxation in china s commercial sector the main conclusions are as follows 1 capital labor and energy in china s commercial sector negatively correlate with their prices and the self price elasticities of energy labor and capital decline in turn 2 the relationship between labor and capital is substitutional and the same relationship is found when after considering labor and energy and that between energy and capital is complementary 3 demand for energy sources negatively correlates with their prices and there exist complementary relationships between energy sources 4 technical effects and substitution effects can effectively promote the decline of energy intensity in china s commercial sector 5 implementing a 50 rmb tonne carbon taxation will lead to 5 50 energy savings and 6 21 co2 reduction

urban residential demand for water in the united states further discussion using a new model formulation and data from a sample of colorado utilities we investigated the price specification controversy marginal price versus average revenue when estimating residential water demand the improved statistical fit using average

regional electric power demand elasticities of japan s industrial and commercial sectors abstract in the assessment and review of regulatory reforms in the electric power market price elasticity is one of the most important parameters that characterize the market however price elasticity has seldom been estimated in japan instead it has been assumed to be as small as 0 1 or 0 without proper examination of the empirical validity of such a priori assumptions we estimated the regional power demand functions for nine regions in order to quantify the elasticity and found the short run price elasticity to be 0 09 0 30 and the long run price elasticity to be 0 12 0 56 inter regional comparison of our estimation results suggests that price elasticity in rural regions is larger than that in urban regions popular assumptions of small elasticity of 0 1 for example could be suitable for examining japan s aggregate power demand but not power demand functions that focus on respective regions furthermore assumptions about smaller elasticity values such as 0 01 and 0 could not be supported statistically by this study

energy substitutability in transition agriculture estimates and implications for hungary subsidised energy prices in pre transition hungary had led to excessive energy intensity in the agricultural sector transition has resulted in steep input price increases in this study allen and morishima elasticities of substitution are estimated to study the effects of these price changes on energy use chemical input use capital formation and employment panel data methods generalised method of moments gmm and instrument exogeneity tests are used to specify and estimate technology and substitution elasticities results indicate that indirect price policy may be effective in controlling energy consumption the sustained increases in energy and chemical input prices have worked together to restrict energy and chemical input use and the substitutability between energy capital and labour has prevented the capital shrinkage and agricultural unemployment situations from being worse the hungarian push towards lower energy intensity may be best pursued through sustained energy price increases rather than capital subsidies

delayed production and raw materials inventory under uncertainty abstract firms producing seasonal goods often make order and production choices prior to highly uncertain sales thus lending an investment quality to their decisions using specialized inputs imposes a delay in receiving them and linked with a long production period the firm makes its order production and pricing choices under successively reduced uncertainty the model shows that input and production costs have distinctive effects on the firm s order size with implications for the stock of raw materials inventory firms facing relatively low input costs are willing to risk leaving inputs unused as a bet for a good state of nature further we investigate situations of greater uncertainty and find a more nuanced explanation of firm behavior than previous research firms with relatively inexpensive inputs facing equal odds of good and bad states of nature will increase their order size a known result however a firm with a low relative cost of completing production may either raise or reduce its order size depending on the demand elasticity and the relative demand uncertainty intuitively firms with expensive inputs facing highly uncertain demand and with many substitute output goods are inhibited by the high cost of insuring against stock outs

estimating demand under block rates electricity and water many empirical studies of the demand for electricity under declining block tariffs have been conducted but few have produced results consistent with traditional demand theory nordin bell j economics 7 719 21 1976 explains this in part by pointing out that most of those studies failed to take into account the income effects caused by intramarginal price differences the authors show here that nordin s suggestion involves the inappropriate use of ordinal level statistics ols they propose a method by which consistent estimates of the demand parameters can be obtained when a household s rule for selecting a block can be estimated 19 references 1 figure

estimating the structure of industrial water demands the case of canadian manufacturing this study considers water use by canadian manufacturing firms the estimation of water demands is based on a detailed cross sectional survey of establishment level observations on water prices quantities and expenditures industrial water use is modeled as having four components intake treatment prior to use recirculation and discharge average values for the estimated own price elasticity for water intake range from 0 1534 to 0 5885 water recirculation is found to be a substitute for both water intake and water discharge this confirms that expanding the use of economic incentives e g effluent fees may be effective in encouraging firms to reduce their water use while increasing in plant recirculation

an econometric estimation of industrial water demand in france this study investigates the structure of industrial water demand byestimating the derived demand for water on a sample of industrialestablishments located in the south west of france productiontechnologies are represented by short term variable cost functions andapproximated by a translog form industrial water use is modeled ashaving three components the quantity of water bought to a waterutility the quantity of autonomous water and the quantity of watertreated prior to use we include in this framework water effluents which are considered as a by product of the production process emittedby firms each of the three water components is treated as a separateinput and all are estimated as a system of simultaneous equations themodel is estimated on a sample of 51 industrial plants in the girondedistrict observed from 1994 to 1996 using seemingly unrelated regression sur and feasible generalized least squares fgls results ofestimations show that industrial firms are sensitive to water priceinputs network water elasticity is estimated at 0 29 it variesfrom 0 10 to 0 79 according to the type of industryconsidered autonomous water price elasticity is not significant elasticity for treated water is evaluated at 1 42 at themean sample and varies from 0 90 to 2 21 according to theindustry considered

comparing residential water demand estimates under decreasing and increasing block rates using household data using a new model formulation and data from a sample of colorado utilities we investigated the price specification controversy marginal price versus average revenue when estimating residential water demand the improved statistical fit using average

perception of price when price information is costly evidence from residential electricity demand a bstract residential electricity consumption is an example of a good for which it is costly to determine marginal price since price changes with the quantity purchased according to multistep block rate schedules this paper investigates the effect of the price information problem on consumers price perceptions an alternative hypothesis of average price perception is tested against the marginal price postulate which assumes wellinformed consumers the model which includes a price perception variable allows the estimation of the price to which consumers actually respond the empirical results support the hypothesis that consumers respond to average price perceived from the electricity bill

municipal water supply and sewage treatment costs prices and distortions municipal water supply and sewage treatment utilities in ontario canada are studied in order to establish their costs of supply and evaluate their pricing practices prices charged to residential and commercial customers are found to be only one third and one sixth of the estimated marginal cost for water supply and sewage treatment respectively for example the average price to residential customers is 0 32m superscript 3 while the estimated marginal cost is 0 87 m superscript 3 the estimated cost parameters are combined with estimated residential and nonresidential demands functions in order to calculate approximate welfare losses that arise from overconsumption

dynamic factor demands and the effects of energy price shocks a dynamic model is used to understand how sharp changes in energy prices affect investment behavior employment and energy use the authors discuss the theory behind their model selection model specifications estimation methods and data list parameter estimates and elasticities for the selected model and describe the simulations they conclude that 1 the data strongly reject the hypothesis of constant returns to scale within their specification of aggregate production 2 the data indicate adjustment costs on labor are small and 3 their results help reconcile some of the conflicting estimates of energy demand elasticities appearing in recent literature 23 references 3 figures 3 tables

environmental regulation of households an empirical review of economic and psychological factors abstract the literature on sustainable consumption and environmental regulation of household behavior is dominated by conceptual and normative approaches as a result many suggestions lack a firm empirical basis to overcome this deficiency econometric studies in three areas of environmentally relevant activities of households are reviewed residential use of energy generation of solid waste and recycling and residential use of water next to price and income elasticities attention is devoted to individual socio economic features and psychological factors such as attitudes knowledge perceptions and values potential psychological determinants and related insights are further examined by discussing a range of representative and illustrative statistical psychological studies of environmental behavior one important general finding is that there are very few empirical studies that systematically combine socio economic and psychological determinants a range of insights for environmental policy is derived and research recommendations are offered

on the risk based aggregate planning for seasonal products in this paper a model is developed to analyze the effect of risk incurring at companies producing highly seasonal products according to observations the closer to the season we are the better our knowledge on demand distribution this fact is reflected by a learning effect in demand distribution applied in the model where the aim is to minimize the risk connected costs originating from the unpredictable behavior of demand the paper confirms that unpredictability is only one of the decisive factors in sequencing products and other elements play an important role too the paper presents forward and backward procedures for determining the production quantities and sequencing of the products in an aggregate planning horizon

determining the production order of two seasonal products under capacity constraint abstract in this paper the production sequence of two seasonal products is analyzed when the parameters of demand forecasts are not certainly known in advance the accuracy of these forecasts improves as the season is approached however the expected demand remains a probability variable when production decisions are made on the production order and volume of the products at the beginning of the planning horizon the novel side of the approach applied in this paper is a capacity constraint inserted into the analyses in which the production volume depends on a probability variable namely on the expected demand

effect of price information on residential water demand microeconomic theory predicts that people decrease consumption when price increases the magnitude of the effect depending on price elasticity the law of demand however implicitly assumes that consumers know prices an assumption that is not always satisfied in markets with ex post billing when prices are not transparent elasticity estimates are potentially lower than their full information potential evidence of low price elasticity abounds in residential water demand studies limiting the effectiveness and desirability of using price signals as a conservation tool it is hypothesized that resident s sluggish response to price is partly due to the absence of price information on water bills differences in the informational content of bills are documented for the first time on the basis of sample bills collected from 383 utilities across the usa a standard aggregate water demand model is augmented with qualitative variables describing differences in billing information allowing such variables to a

measuring the income elasticity of water demand the importance of publication and endogeneity biases we present the first study that examines the effects of publication selection in the literature estimating the income elasticity of water demand paradoxically more affected by publication selection are the otherwise preferable estimates that control for endogeneity attempting to correct simultaneously for publication and endogeneity biases we find that the mean underlying elasticity is approximately 0 15 or less the result is robust to controlling for more than 30 characteristics of the estimates and accounting for model uncertainty the differences in the reported estimates are systematically driven by differences in the tariff structure regional coverage data granularity and control for temperature

production planning of style goods with high setup costs and forecast revisions in this paper we study a problem common to a wide variety of manufacturing companies of determining the production schedule of style goods such as clothing and consumer durables under capacity constraints demand for items is stochastic and occurs in the last season of the planning horizon demand estimates are revised in each period we exploit the problem s two level hierarchical structure which is characterized by families and items production changeover costs from one family to another are high compared to other costs however changeover costs between items in the same family are negligible we first formulate this problem as a difficult to solve stochastic mixed integer programming problem then exploiting the problem s hierarchical structure we formulate a deterministic mixed integer programming problem and solve it by means of an algorithm that provides an approximate solution a lower bound is obtained by applying generalized linear programming to the approximate problem we illustrate the procedure using the disguised data of a consumer electronics company the computational results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in a practical setting

are price strategies effective in managing demand of high residential water users abstractencouraging water use efficiency and water conservation is one of the primary goals of water utility companies nationwide this study estimates price elasticity of residential water demand to measure the responsiveness of water use to price changes particularly for high water users household level water use data for high residential water users from central florida were analysed using 3 stage least square 3sls estimated price elasticity ranges between 0 07 and 0 14 this price elasticity estimate is below most of the estimates reported in the literature in absolute value the results imply that for price strategies to be effective in managing water demand of high residential water users a significant price increase would be needed overall this study highlights the importance of designing water conservation policies tailored to specific groups of customers and the importance of using these strategies effectively and fairly for different customer groups

assessing a disaggregated energy input using confidence intervals around translog elasticity estimates the role of energy in the production of manufacturing output has been debated extensively in the literature particularly its relationship with capital and labor in an attempt to provide some clarification in this debate a two step methodology was used first under the assumption of a five factor production function specification we distinguished between electric and non electric energy and assessed each component s relationship with capital and labor second we calculated both the allen and price elasticities and constructed 95 confidence intervals around these values our approach led to the following conclusions that the disaggregation of the energy input into electric and non electric energy is justified that capital and electric energy and capital and non electric energy are substitutes while labor and electric energy and labor and non electric energy are complements in production and that capital and energy are substitutes while labor and energy are complements

evidence on the specification of price in the study of domestic water demand the development of lakefront property in northern wisconsin has prompted in several towns minimum frontage zoning stricter than the state standard such zoning generates an economic loss by constraining development development effect and an economic

a stochastic sequencing problem for style goods with forecast revisions and hierarchical structure this paper addresses the problem of simultaneously determining a production sequence and production volumes of style goods style goods have one selling season per year during the rest of the year manufacturers of style goods build up the inventory while continuously reestimating the demand in the final selling season in this problem products have a two stage hierarchy items and families the production of a family is assumed to be nonpreemptive exploiting the hierarchical structure we formulate the problem as a two stage stochastic sequencing problem the stochastic aggregate sequencing problem and the stochastic disaggregation problem to solve the stochastic aggregate sequencing problem a simple heuristic solution procedure is developed that accounts for the forecast revisions and provides a lower bound on the optimal value the heuristic is tested using the disguised data obtained from a consumer electronics company the computational results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed procedure

potential for pricing policies in water resource management estimation of urban residential water demand in zaragoza spain this paper presents an empirical study to estimate the urban residential water demand in zaragoza spain this allows the testing of the short run sensitivity of water demand to changes in a set of

confidence intervals for elasticity estimators in translog models this paper examines the distribution fu nctions of elasticity estimators in translog demand models the authors consider the normaland ratio of normals distributions and present confidence intervals for the elasticity estimators the results suggest that only elasticity estimato rs based on the means of the actual cost shares are likely to follow either the normal or ratio of normals distribution function examination of three published empirical studies demonstrates that inferences regarding the values of elasticities cannot be made from point estimates alone and suggests a trade off between the level of aggregation and the width of confidence intervals for the elasticit y estimators copyright 1986 by mit press