factors influencing differences between survey and market based environmental value measures a unique us database combining survey and housing data is used to obtain household level stated and market based willingness to pay wtp measures to avoid living near landfills systematic differe

cost efficiency and optimal scale of electricity distribution firms in taiwan an application of metafrontier analysis abstract this paper analyzes the cost efficiency and optimal scale of taiwan s electricity distribution industry due to the substantial difference in network density firms may differ widely in production technology we employ the stochastic metafrontier approach to estimate the cost efficiency of 24 distribution units during the period 1997 2002 empirical results find that the average cost efficiency is overestimated using the traditional stochastic frontier model especially for low density regions the average cost efficiency of the high density group is significantly higher than that of the low density group as it benefits from network economies this study also calculates both short term and long term optimal scales of electricity distribution firms lending policy implications for the deregulation of the electricity distribution industry

gender wage gaps reconsidered a structural approach using matched employer employee data in this paper we study the extent to which wage differentials between men and women can be explained by differences in productivity disparities in friction patterns segregation and wage discrimination for this purpose we propose an equilibrium search model that features rent splitting on the job search and two sided heterogeneity in productivity the model is estimated using german matched employer employee data overall the results reveal that female workers are less productive and more mobile than males in addition female workers have on average slightly lower bargaining power than their male counterparts

profitability and productivity changes in the korean electricity industry abstract the korean electricity industry saw significant changes following the reform in april 2001 until the last decade the industry was monopolized by the korea electric power corporation kepco a state owned vertically integrated company the 2001 reform divided kepco s power generation division into six power generation companies gencos with the aim of improving efficiency and introducing competition in the electricity industry in this study we used capital total factor productivity ktfp to analyze profit changes from fixed input capital and an index number profit decomposition inpd to examine the sources of the profit changes we investigate the industry thoroughly from three points of view the overall industry over time the power generation sector by company and the transmission and distribution sectors of the korea electric power corporation kepco next we measured how the profits from productivity growth were distributed to consumers fuel suppliers employees and company owners the results suggest that a more reasonable price system for both wholesale and consumer prices needs to be implemented prior to the privatization and deregulation of the korean electricity industry

the nested piglog model an application to u s food demand a new demand system is introduced the nested piglog model nesting thirteen other demand systems including five that are also new this new model and its nested special cases are applied to models of u s food demand that include food at home fah food away from home fafh and alcoholic beverages although nested tests and out of sample forecasting performance favor generalizing models to a certain degree statistically insignificant improvements to in sample fit and even poorer out of sample forecast accuracy undermine further generalizations based on a subset of preferred models fafh is found to be price and income elastic compared to fah which is price and income

household composition income and food away from home expenditure in urban china abstract china has experienced dramatic economic growth and socio demographic changes in the last three decades including rapid urbanization and an aging society in the coming decades this paper analyses food away from home fafh consumption in urban china with respect to household composition income and other socio economic variables the data are from household surveys in six chinese cities i e beijing nanjing chengdu xi an shenyang and xiamen collected by the authors findings indicate that both household composition and income have significant effects on fafh participation and expenditures projections based upon our results suggest that fafh expenditures in urban china will continue to increase through 2050 the leading contributor to increased fafh expenditure is china s strong income growth followed by the expected rapid urbanization the aging society however will have a negative influence on fafh consumption

demand for prepared meals by u s households using the 1987 88 nfcs a heckman two stage procedure was used to estimate the demand for prepared meals by u s households prepared meals were defined as those ready to eat and those ready to cook households headed by younger more educated and time constrained managers were more likely to purchase prepared meals income elasticities ranged from 0 07 to 0 13 while own price elasticities ranged from 0 23 to 0 66 evidence exists to indicate that prepared meals and food away from home are substitutes the presence of teenagers in a household is positively associated with expenditures of prepared meals

a bootstrapped double hurdle analysis consumption of home produced food this article deals with home made food the consumption of such specific goods involves an important null consumption issue a two step procedure is used to estimate whether the decision to consume is distinct from the decision on the amount of consumption data from the 1991 french food consumption survey show the relevance of double hurdle models finally the estimation of cragg s model is improved with a new undersampling procedure numerous and sometimes opposite effects of household characteristics on the probability of consuming home produced food and on the amount consumed are obtained

estimating fishing and hunting leisure spending shares in the united states abstract we apply a bivariate censored demand system to estimate hunting and fishing trip related spending shares in the united states using data from off site surveys the approach considers fishing and hunting destination decisions and includes respondents who were inactive i e did not hunt or fished in a particular season the statistical significance of correlation coefficient parameter supports the use of a joint e g bivariate rather than separate e g univariate decision modeling process for fishing or hunting share equations most individual characteristics are statistically significant as explanatory variables respondents holding recreation licenses tended to spend significantly more on recreation than those without licenses all own price and cross price elasticities are statistically significant and suggest that hunting and fishing are complements the results also suggest that the popularity of hunting may decline as the population ages

household food demand in burkina faso implications for food policy abstract chronic food production deficits since the early 1970s have prompted policymakers of burkina faso to emphasize technological research with the goal of increasing the production of the most consumed locally grown cereals sorghum millet and maize meanwhile urban consumers have been developing preferences for rice and wheat cereals that are primarily imported this study estimates demand relationships among food items in ouagadougou burkina the results of the estimation suggest that prices income household composition education marital status and urbanization were jointly important in explaining household expenditure allocations both local and imported cereal consumption responded positively to an income increase however incremental income changes would lead to relatively greater consumption of locally produced cereals by low income households whereas high income households would consume relatively more wheat and rice the household model is then used to demonstrate its relevance in addressing food policy issues by forecasting the levels of urban grain demand under alternative income and demographic scenarios with increased production due to advances in technology the urban demand levels do not exhaust the rural surplus of local cereals but deficits persist in the rice wheat sector the results underscore the importance of technological research since burkina could become self sufficient in at least the production of sorghum millet and maize

a double hurdle approach to modelling tobacco consumption in italy this article analyzes the determinants of tobacco expenditures for a sample of italian households a box cox double hurdle model adjusted for heteroscedasticity is estimated to account for separate individual decisions concerning smoking participation and tobacco consumption and to correct for nonnormality in the bivariate distribution of the error terms nested univariate and bivariate models are found to be excessively restrictive supporting the adequacy of a generalized specification estimation results show that consumption decisions are significantly affected by income and demographic characteristics in particular income positively impacts tobacco expenditure while participation probability substantially declines as age increases the existence of significant gender differences in both smoking participation and tobacco consumption patterns is found while high education and white collar occupation reduces the likelihood to smoke and tobacco expenditure levels single adult households have a lower

household composition and food expenditures a cross country comparison abstract in the analysis of food expenditures use of household member counts as an explanatory variable assumes each member has the same marginal food expenditure impact in our analysis of latin american food expenditures we reject this assumption via the estimation of endogenously determined adult equivalence scales that vary by household member gender and age a series of hypothesis tests indicate significant differences not only in the male versus female equivalence scales but also across country with the use of such equivalence scales in the definition of per capita expenditures we find significant differences in the distributions implying substantially different poverty rankings

rebound effects of new irrigation technologies the role of water rights we study how institutions such as water rights can complement new irrigation technologies in promoting the sustainability of u s agriculture using data from the ogallala high plains aquifer region of kansas we find that water extraction moderately increases after adopting low energy precise application lepa irrigation and this rebound effect is in general higher for farmers with larger water rights about half of the lepa s rebound effects arise because adopters tend to irrigate more land and grow more water intensive crops with the remaining half attributable to more intensive irrigation farmers with greater water rights use more water with two thirds of the effects arising from irrigating larger land areas and one third of the effects attributable to more intensive irrigation a 10 reduction of water rights will reduce water use by 5 in the long run and if the reduction targets the majority of the water rights which lie between 100 and 500 af lepa s rebound effect decreases by 15 4 finally we find that farmers have an incentive to apply a small amount of water in order to preserve their water rights but the associated water waste is insignificant

impact of off farm labor supply on food expenditures of the farm household abstract farm households diversify their income sources by working off the farm this is a risk management strategy that is used by farm households in both developed and developing countries income diversification via off farm work is associated with higher incomes and food consumption however little is known about the association between off farm work and farm household food expenditures in an effort to bridge this gap this study attempts to assess the impact of off farm work decisions by the operator and or the spouse on the food expenditures of the farm household using a nationwide farm household survey in the united states and new econometric method we find that the decisions of the operator and or the spouse to work off the farm are significantly interrelated 29 however these two decisions affect food expenditures in different ways the operator s off farm work decision is positively related to food expenditures while the spouse s decision is negatively associated with expenditures on food by the farm household

estimating the cost of leisure time for recreation demand models abstract in this paper we propose a method of determining the opportunity cost of leisure time with an empirical recreation demand application typically the opportunity cost of leisure time is assumed to be some fraction of the wage rate this practice has limitations first it assumes that individuals can trade time for money at their wage second it offers no guidance about how to value the time of an individual who is not in the labor force this paper proposes a method of determining this cost that does not suffer from these drawbacks an empirical example is provided which demonstrates the proposed approach and contrasts it with commonly applied approaches

demand systems estimation with microdata a censored regression approach demand systems estimation increasingly makes use of household level microdata mainly to measure the effects of demographic variables data based on these household expenditure surveys present a major estimation problem for any given household many of the goods have zero consumption implying a censored dependent variable techniques which do not take this censored dependent variable into account will yield biased results we utilize a censored regression approach that is computationally simple consistent and asymptotically efficient the results are then presented and compared with those obtained using an uncensored technique

allocation of time for meal preparation in a transition economy abstract the decision of how much time to allocate to meal preparation is an endogenous variable to be determined by the opportunity cost of time preference between market and nonmarket goods and leisure and household production technology using consumer survey data collected in bulgaria in 1997 this study measured the effect of household income on the amount of time allocated to meal preparation after controlling the effects of demographic socio economic and other characteristics of households we used the first hurdle dominance model to distinguish non meal preparers from meal preparers since the overall pattern of allocating time between market work household activity and leisure in a particular country is likely to be conditional on the stage of its economic development this study presents a unique opportunity to assess the rationality of the time allocation behavior of consumers in an economy in transition from a centrally planned to a market oriented system results showed that household income did not influence the decision of how much time to allocate to meal preparation while the insignificant linkage between income and time allocation to meal preparation could be due to the differences in preference and household production technology it can be also attributed to the legacy of four decades of a central planning system and underdeveloped food manufacturing and service industries

generating efficiency economic and environmental regulation of public and private electricity generators in spain abstract economic regulation of firms with market power has placed increasing emphasis on incentive based regulation such as price caps we focus on the effect of regulation as distinct from ownership and identify the effect of two different regulatory schemes on both publicly and privately owned spanish electricity generators publicly owned generators were more efficient under cost of service regulation private but not public firms responded to incentive regulation by increasing efficiency bringing their productivity to similar levels we introduce some novelty in modelling efficiency including three pollutants and declared plant availability as outputs and we test for the effect of environmental regulation in reducing pollutants

an investigation of the increasing prevalence of nonpurchase of meat by british households the purpose of the analysis has been to investigate the determinants of the household s decisions regarding the purchase of meat in great britain the approach using a box cox generalization of the double hurdle model has depicted the household making two choices namely whether or not to purchase the product the participation decision and then for those households which do purchase how much to buy the expenditure decision the determinants considered are socioeconomic variables such as the total expenditure of the household market prices characteristics of the householder age gender education type of employment and characteristics of the household location presence of children etc by conducting the analysis over several years of survey data 1975 1993 it is possible to investigate whether the influence of these variables has changed over time the bulk of the empirical analysis has concerned single adult households with or without children

household consumption of cheese an inverse hyperbolic sine double hurdle model with dependent errors the dependent double hurdle model is generalized by an inverse hyperbolic sine transformation of the dependent variable the resulting specification features a flexible parameterization accommodates heteroskedastic errors and nests a range of common limited dependent variable models results for u s household cheese consumption suggest that the homoskedastic and normal double hurdle model is misspecified income elasticities are small and vary across household groups foodstamp recipients are more responsive to income changes than nonrecipients foodstamp recipients are also less likely to consume cheese but conditional on consumption spend more than nonrecipients

household demand for convenience and nonconvenience foods states the budget shares are generally more responsive to prices than to real total expenditure additionally the quantities demanded of convenience and nonconvenience foods are generally more sensitive to changes in income and own prices than to changes in cross prices with regard to demographic variates primary users of convenience foods are white households with employed household managers less than 35 years of age

property rights in a fishery regulatory change and firm performance a new method is introduced and applied to the british columbia halibut fishery to analyze changes in productivity of firms harvesting a natural capital stock the index number technique decomposes the contributions of output prices variable input prices fixed inputs and productivity to firm profits adjusted for changes in the natural capital stock an application of the method is given using micro level data from a common pool resource the indexes provide a ready made comparison of all firms to the most profitable firm per unit of resource stock benchmarking with the decompositions also allows firms and regulators to improve overall industry performance by allowing them to analyze what components are contributing most to relative economic profits

understanding the native immigrant wage gap using matched employer employee data evidence from germany in this article the author proposes a new method for measuring wage discrimination that builds on the methodology first developed by hellerstein and neumark 1999 the author s method has three m

quick service expenditure in ireland parametric vs semiparametric analysis the aim of this study is to identify the economic and socio economic factors influencing irish households expenditure on quick service meals a particularly dynamic component of the foodservice industry and to determine the extent to which these factors have changed over the course of the 1990s maximum likelihood estimation and semiparametric alternatives are considered with the conclusion that in this instance semiparametric techniques do not offer a viable alternative to maximum likelihood estimation of tobit models even in the presence of heteroscedasticity and non normality the results revel that household income place of residence commuters and household size have significant and positive influences on quick service expenditure older families single households and married couples together with homeowners display reduced expenditure the opportunity cost of time is positively related to quick service expenditure consistent with theory while health knowledge has a negative impact on quick

wages equal productivity fact or fiction using a matched employer employee data set of manufacturing plants in three subsaharan countries i compare the marginal productivity of different categories of workers with the wages they earn in each country i observe approximately 135 firms and an average of 5 5 employees per firm under certain conditions the wage premiums for worker characteristics should equal the productivity benefits associated with them i find that equality holds strongly in zimbabwe the most developed country in the sample but not at all for tanzania the least developed country results for kenya are intermediate differences between wage and productivity premiums are most pronounced for characteristics that are clearly related to human capital such as schooling training experience and tenure moreover where the wage premium differs from the productivity benefit general human capital tends to receive a wage return that exceeds the productivity return and the reverse holds for more specific human capital investments schooling tends to be over rewarded even though most of the productivity benefit comes from job training wages tend to rise with experience even though productivity is mostly increasing in tenure sampling errors nonlinear effects and non wage benefits are rejected as explanation for the gap between wage and productivity effects localized labor markets and imperfect substitutability of different worker types provide a partial explanation department of economics university of toronto 150 st george street toronto on m5s 3g7 canada jovb chass utoronto ca seminar participants at the university of illinois kellogg school of management and catholic university of louvain provided useful suggestions funding by the connaught foundation is gratefully acknowledged

working wives and food away from home the box cox double hurdle model household expenditures on food away from home are analyzed with the use of the bls 1989 consumer expenditure survey parameterization and distributional assumptions of cragg s double hurdle model are generalized for this purpose and the resulting model outperforms the more traditional ones results suggest households with working wives and those with higher income are more likely to consume food away from home and also to consume more than others wife s age and household size increase the conditional level of consumption education has conflicting effects on probability and conditional level of consumption

sex wages and productivity an empirical analysis of israeli firm level data sex discrimination in labor markets may generate a wage gap between men and women that exceeds any gap in marginal productivity we test for this type of discrimination using unique firm level data on manufacturing firms in israel there is a statistically significant negative association between wages and the proportion of a firm s workforce that is female however there is also a statistically significant negative association between marginal productivity and the proportion of females the difference beween the wage and productivity gaps is small relative to wage regression estimates of wage discrimination and is not statistically significant which is most consistent with no discrimination

breakfast lunch and dinner expenditures away from home in the united states abstract this study investigates the differentiated effects of economic and socio demographic variables on food away from home fafh expenditures by type of meal among different types of households in the united states using data from the 2008 and 2009 consumer expenditure surveys the systems of expenditures on breakfast lunch and dinner are estimated with a multivariate sample selection procedure statistical significance of error correlations among equations justifies estimation of the sample selection systems income work hours race education geographic region and household composition are important determinants of fafh expenditures income contributes to fafh expenditures of all meal types implying that the future of fafh industry is tied to macroeconomic conditions more education is associated with increased expenditures for fafh lunch and dinner effects of the supplemental nutrition assistance program snap are negligible

he came he saw and he waited an empirical analysis of inertia in technology adoption the innovation adoption literature has focused primarily on a producer s decision of whether and how much to adopt an equally pertinent question is when to adopt because in the case of new techno

household consumption of food away from home total expenditure and by type of food facility consistent with prior expectations based on household production theory household income time value size and composition and the environment in which production and consumption occurred were all important determinants of total household expenditures on food away from home however the importance of these factors varied by type of food facility conventional restaurants fast food facilities and other commercial establishments decomposition of the tobit elasticities indicated the differential importance of market participation effects of household size income and time value by level of the variable and by type of food facility

calibrating benefit function transfer to assess the conservation reserve program benefit transfer offers an inexpensive alternative to conducting an original study to determine economic value unfortunately benefit transfers can also result in biased welfare estimates in this paper we suggest a method of calibrating the benefit transfer to reduce this bias an empirical example to determine the benefits of the conservation reserve program on water based recreation illustrates the potentially large biases that can result if the transfer is not calibrated

are educated workers really more productive abstract this paper presents a new method for examining the productive nature of education it outlines an econometric model which simultaneously estimates an earnings function and a production function for workers and the firms where they are employed this approach permits a direct comparison to be made between the relative wage and relative productivity of workers with different levels of education using a unique data set from ghana two primary questions are addressed 1 are educated workers more productive than workers with no formal education and 2 do earnings differentials between workers with different levels of education reflect genuine productivity differentials the results suggest that education is positively correlated with productivity in ghanaian manufacturing and that firms pay workers according to their productivity

a box cox double hurdle model of wildlife valuation the citizen s perspective abstract a stated preference approach is used to elicit the attitudes of the general public towards coyote conservation the payment vehicle is presented in a way that explicitly prompts respondents to adopt a citizen perspective rather than a consumer perspective when responding to the survey to deal with the large numbers of zero responses a box cox double hurdle specification is used to model separately individuals choices about whether to support conservation or not and their choice about the level of support the results show that simpler analyses that do not account explicitly for these two different decisions would lead to misleading conclusions in the study of nuisance wildlife the study uses primary data from prince edward island canada

calculating marginal effects in models for zero expenditures in household budgets using a heckman type correction using the heckamn approach either in single equation or multi equation settings general expressions are derived for calculating marginal effects and elasticities in the conventional calculation of marginal effects terms related to the change in the inverse of mills ratio are omitted using data from the 19877 88 nationwide food consumption survey we calculate income and household size elasticities for 12 food commodities we compare the magnitudes and signs of the elasticities using the conventional expressions of marginal effects and our derived expressions bottomline sizeable differences especially in single equation applications can occur in calculating marginal effects if one fails to account for changes in the inverse of the mills ratio

working wives and the marginal propensity to consume food away from home contrary to predictions from the new household economics theory and heuristic thought income earned by wives working full time did not increase the marginal propensity to consume food away from home tobit estimates of the same propensity from other income sources in married u s households in 1978 showed that income earned by part time working wives and children asset income and transfer payments increased this propensity above that from husband s labor income whites had higher expenditures higher marginal propensities to consume and lower income elasticities for food away from home than nonwhites

investment in soil conservation in northern ethiopia the role of land tenure security and public programs abstract a double hurdle statistical analysis of 250 farms in the tigray region of ethiopia reveals different causal factors for soil conservation adoption versus intensity of use farmers reasons for adopting soil conservation measures vary sharply between stone terraces and soil bunds long term investments in stone terraces were associated with secure land tenure labour availability proximity to the farmstead and learning opportunities via the existence of local food for work ffw projects by contrast short term investments in soil bunds were strongly linked to insecure land tenure and the absence of local food for work projects public conservation campaigns on private plots reduced adoption of both stone terraces and soil bunds whereas capacity factors largely influenced the adoption decision expected returns carried more influence for the intensity of stone terrace adoption measured as metres of terrace per hectare more stone terracing was built where fertile but erodible silty soils in higher rainfall areas offered valuable yield benefits intensity of terracing was also greater in remote villages where limited off farm employment opportunities reduced construction costs these results highlight the importance of the right kind of public interventions direct public involvement in constructing soil conservation structures on private lands appears to undermine incentives for private conservation investments when done on public lands however public conservation activities may encourage private soil conservation by example secure land tenure rights clearly reinforce private incentives to make long term investments in soil conservation

durables and wives employment yet again the literature examining the relationship between consumer durables expenditures and wives employment is analyzed several deficiencies in the literature are corrected in a revised model that is estimated with data from the 1977 1978 survey of consumer expenditures this article concludes that durables expenditures and wives employment time are complements

discrimination and skill differences in an equilibrium search model in this paper we analyze an equilibrium search model with three sources for wage an d unemployment differentials among workers with the same observed human capital but differen t appearance race unobserved productivity skill search in tensities and discrimination becker 1957 due to an appearance based employer disutility factor because they affect the earnings distributions differently empirical identification of these potential sources for the explanation of wage an d unemployment differentials is possible we show that the structural parameters of the model including the firm s disutility from certain workers are identifiab le using standard labor market survey data we demonstrate identification using data from the national longitudinal survey of youth estimation of these parameters by matching moments from a sample of black and white high school graduate s implies a blacks have a 9 lower productivi ty level than whites b the disutility factor in employer s preferences is one third of the white s productivity level and c 50 of firms have a disutility factor in their utility toward blacks

food expenditures and socioeconomic characteristics focus on income class changes in food consumption and expenditures in american households have been a topic of much research throughout the twentieth century so it is well known that income influences food expenditure patterns furthermore programs that increase the purchasing power of low income households e g the food stamp program also positively affect food expenditures given that income influences food ex

changing household characteristics and the away from home food market a censored equation system approach abstract the american consumer is obtaining more and more of his or her food at a restaurant and that worries some people concerned with the nation s dietary health to date much of this concern seems to be directed at the fast food segment of the restaurant industry this paper asks whether targeting one segment of the industry such as fast food restaurants is justified or whether a more balanced view of eating away from home is required to answer this question we look to the future and ask whether americans can be expected to purchase increasingly more fast food or more and more of the foods typically associated with full service dining one view is that sales at full service restaurants will now grow relatively faster than sales of fast food the argument supporting this position rests on rising incomes the aging of the population smaller household sizes and other changes taking place in the population using a new full information maximum likelihood procedure for estimating a system of censored expenditure equations we find evidence to support this argument

the demand for alcoholic beverages in spain the objective of this study is to analyze the main determinants of alcoholic beverages consumption at home data comes from the latest spanish household national survey which provides information on expenditure and quantities of different food products by household because households are interviewed only 1 week a large number of zeros have been recorded among the existing censured demand models the double hurdle dh model the purchase infrequency model and the tobit purchase infrequency model among others and after carrying out model selection tests the dh model has been finally estimated all expenditure elasticities are positive corresponding the highest value to spirits own price elasticities are negative and also in this case the spirits exhibit the highest value socio economic variables also play an important role in explaining consumer purchase and consumption decisions

determinants of credit card accounts an application of tobit analysis tobit analysis was used to examine the relative importance of household characteristics in determining the number of credit card accounts per household results supported theoretical predictions that households whose time was the most valuable would be most likely to have credit card accounts this study suggests that tobit analysis is useful for a broad range of consumer behavior studies

spanish food expenditure away from home fafh by type of meal changes in household income wife s labour force participation household size and other demographic factors influence purchasing meals away from home in spain spanish household expenditure on lunch breakfast and snacks away from home were investigated within the household production theory context the becker s model states that consumers maximize their utility subject not only to the budget constraint but also to a time constraint moreover this model assumes that consumers demand not only the food product itself but also the associated convenience to save time in food preparation therefore the relation between the value of time and food away from home has a high relevance data come from the spanish continuous household survey for 1996 due to the large number of zeros in the dependent variable different dependent variable censured models double hurdle infrequency of purchase etc have been specified and estimated these studies found that food purchasing behaviour away from home of spanish

analysis of food away from home expenditure patterns for u s households 1982 89 the two step decision process for food away from home fafh consumption is empirically estimated using a generalization of the heien and wessells approach household information gathered by the national panel diary group is used for the analysis marginal effects are corrected by untangling the respective variable impacts on the inverse mills ratio expenditure and participation probability elasticities are similar to previous studies income elasticities are about 0 20 suggesting that the fafh commodity is a necessary good for u s society northeastern households are less likely to consume fafh than other households but their expenditures are higher on average

rural electrification and household labor supply evidence from nigeria in nigeria the most populated african country rural electrification is a critical issue because of the low household electrification rate and the poor quality of the grid this energy poverty has harmful economic and social consequences in rural areas such as low productivity lack of income generating opportunities and poor housing conditions in this paper we consider electrification as a technical shock that may affect household time allocation using the 2010 2011 general household survey we investigate how electrification affects female and male labor supply decisions within rural households in nigeria focusing on husband wife data we consider potential dependence in spouses labor supply decisions and address the challenge of zero hours of work using a recent copula based bivariate hurdle model deb et al 2013 in addition an instrumental variable strategy helps identify the causal effect of elec trification our results underline that this dependence in spouses labor supply decisions is critical to consider when assessing the impact of electrification on these outcomes electrifi cation increases the working time of both spouses in the separate assessments but the joint analysis emphasizes only a positive effect of electrification on husbands working time in line with the household labor supply approach our findings highlight that within the household the labor supply decisions of one spouse significantly affect those of the other spouse thus if we neglect the effect of electrification on the spouse of the individual examined we may fail to assess how this individual has been actually affected by this common shock on both spouses our results suggest that these within household relationships promote husbands working time at the expense of wives working time

heterogeneous returns to chemical fertilizer at the intensive margins insights from nepal increased fertilizer use is considered important for agricultural development in low income countries promoting increased use of chemical fertilizer by lowering its price may be ineffective if demand is price inelastic in theory the price elasticity of demand depends on the returns to its use but the evidence is scarce furthermore while returns are often estimated for small changes in chemical fertilizer use returns to larger changes in its use intensive margins are less understood through the inter zonal comparisons in nepal we provide indicative evidence that greater returns to chemical fertilizer are associated with greater price elasticities of demand moreover the evidence suggests that returns at the intensive margins rather than returns to small changes may largely account for inter zonal differences in returns to chemical fertilizer within nepal the results suggest that better understanding the returns at the intensive margins is critical for effective agricultural inputs policies in developing countries

the time cost of food at home general and food stamp participant profiles little is known about the cost of time in food preparation at home yet this economic variable is a common thread running through recent concerns about obesity and the food stamp fs program this article provides initial estimates of the time cost in food preparation at home for the united states two standard methods of estimation are implemented and three demographic profiles are considered i the general population ii the typical fs participant and iii the typical fs participant following the united states department of agriculture thrifty food plan for the general population and averaging across methods the time cost share of total food cost is about 30 if the individual works in the market and at home but it is about 49 if the individual does not work in the market for the typical fs participant especially one following the thrifty food plan the time cost share of total food cost can be as much as 26 higher than the general population these substantial percentages provide strong i

is maternal employment related to childhood obesity in china evidence from the china health and nutrition survey using five waves from the china health and nutrition survey chns we investigate the association between maternal employment and obesity in children aged 3 17 in both rural and urban china using body mass index bmi and waist circumference wc as measures for paediatric adiposity we provide scant evidence for its relation to maternal employment we also find no strong association between maternal employment and our measures for children s diet and physical activity our study also suggests that grand parenting could have beneficial effects on childhood obesity

the determinants of the cost efficiency of electric generating plants a stochastic frontier approach this article provides a detailed analysis of generation plant operating cost efficiency over the period 1988 1997 i estimate a stochastic frontier cost function together with a model of plant inefficiencies to measure the operating efficiencies of individual plants and identify factors that are associated with variations in plant efficiencies i find evidence that plant efficiencies are associated with capacity utilization of the plant the number of plants under utility management and ownership form i also find that regulatory restructuring activity in certain states is associated with improvements in plant operating performance the purpose of this article is to provide a detailed analysis of the operating cost efficiencies of electricity generating plants over the period 1988 1997 i estimate the operating efficiencies of fossil fueled steam generating plants and examine factors that influence plant operating performance i use the estimation procedure of battese and coelli 1995 to simultaneously estimate a stochastic frontier cost function and a function relating plant efficiency levels to plant specific factors and other explanatory variables a comprehensive data set allows me to investigate the influence of capacity utilization ownership form and utility experience on plant efficiency levels since significant regulatory change in the electricity industry had begun during this time period i also investigate the impact of state level regulatory change on plant operating efficiency a number of authors have analyzed the efficiencies of electricity generating plants relative to a best practice frontier including kopp and smith 1980 schmidt and lovell 1979 stevenson 1980 cote 1989 reifschneider and stevenson 1991 hammond 1992 pollitt 1995 and fire grosskopf and logan 1983 1985 these studies find considerable evidence of inefficiency in electricity generation during the 1960s and 1970s the present study provides more recent information regarding generating plant efficiencies during a period of significant regulatory and structural change studies investigating the determinants of power plant departures from the frontier have focused primarily on the effects of ownership mode pollitt 1995 provides a comprehensive review of these studies reifschneider and stevenson 1991 examine the impact on cost efficiency of a number of variables including the capacity utilization of the firm s generating facilities more recently knittel 2001 examines the impact of incentive regulation on plant efficiency levels steiner

foreign ownership and wages evidence from hungary 1986 2008 this article estimates the wage effects of foreign direct investment fdi using firm level and linked employer employee panel data containing a large number of foreign acquisitions over a long per

contribution of productivity and firm size to value added evidence from vietnam abstract a new indexing method is developed to decompose the contributions of productivity prices and firm size to a firm s value added the method introduces an error term into the decomposition equation to capture measurement biases which are caused by using the deflator instead of the observed price and all other sorts of measurement error an application of the method is given using private small and medium manufacturing firm level data in vietnam from 1996 and 2001 the error index decomposition method provides a comparison of performance of all firms to the hypothetical representative firm the analysis allows firms and policy makers to realize the key factors contributing to the success or failure of a firm and suggest strategies to improve firm economic performance

a sample selection model for prepared food expenditures the factors affecting household expenditures on four types of prepared food products from a sample selection model estimated using a two step method are explored results suggest that several variables affect household expenditures on various prepared food products factors examined are presence of children number of earners region household size seasonality age race education and income

wives labor force behavior and family consumption patterns in 1940 the labor force participation rate for married women husband present was 14 percent by 1970 it had increased 26 percentage points to 40 percent the supply and demand variables associated with this increase have been widely investigated however there has been ve ry little research on the economic effects of wives labor force participation see r agarwala and j drinkwater margaret carroll robert holbrook and frank stafford lucy mallan and jacob mincer this paper analyzes two economic effects the effect on the ratio of consumption to income ciy and the effect on the ratio of durable goods purchases to income durly the primary question addressed is controlling for total family income and several other variables what are the differences if any in the ratios of ciy and durly for working wife w w and nonworking wife n w w families looked at in another way the question may be rephrased how do w w families use wives income

viewpoint male female wage differentials how can that be abstract the paper outlines the main empirical procedures that are used to document the male female wage differential and the extent to which it reflects discrimination it then discusses the evidence on male female wage differentials their existence the extent to which they reflect discrimination their changes over time and the factors that influence the gap particular attention is paid to more recent studies that control for a wider range of conventionally unobserved factors theoretical perspectives are then outlined focusing on the issue of how discriminatory wage differentials can survive given the forces of competition the impacts of policy initiatives are also discussed

wife s employment food expenditures and apparent nutrient intake evidence from canada the increase in women working outside the home has had important economic effects one effect involves food expenditures both in terms of patterns of eating out and the types of foods prepared in the home with consequent effects on nutrient availability this study examines the effect of wife s employment on an extensive set of variables describing food behavior the variables include the share of food in total expenditure the share of food away from home fafh in the food budget price paid per calorie and the per capita availability of twelve nutrients the results are of potential interest for food policy for nutrition education and for programs which aim to affect the nutrient composition of food eaten outside the home restaurant food fast food school meals etc in ad

determinants of household expenditures for services data from the bureau of labor statistics consumer expenditure surveys were used to investigate factors influencing household expenditures for services in the united states there were significant differences between families with full time and part time working wives in expenditures on child care food away from home and total services household production variables had a significant impact on service expenditures in most instances while the effects of other variables such as family life cycle education race and geographic location varied by service category and employment status of wife

an exogeneity test for a simultaneous equation tobit model with an application to labor supply a test of weak exogeneity in the simultaneous equation tobit model is proposed and illustrated using a female labour supply model estimated using cross section data the test statistic can be simply output from any standard tobit maximum likelihood package and is asymptotically efficient the procedure provides consistent estimators for the simultaneous tobit model whose asymptotic covariance matrix is a simple extension of the usual tobit formula we also provide the lagrange multiplier test of weak exogeneity this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

price dispersion and accessibility a case study of fast food this study examines spatial variation in the price and accessibility of fast food across a major urban area we use novel data on the price of a representative fast food meal and the location of fast food restaurants belonging to one of three major chains in the district of columbia and its surrounding suburbs these data are used to test a structural model of spatial competition the results of this study are easily interpreted and compared with a past analysis we find that spatial differences in costs and demand conditions drive variation in the number of firms operating in a market which in turn affects prices