quasi experimental price elasticities of cigarette demand and the bootlegging effect this paper updates the lyon and simon quasi experimental price elasticities of cigarette demand and studies their sensitivity to changes in the cigarette market over time as well as their sensitivity to the effects of bootlegging the results indicate a downward trend in these elasticities over time and an upward bias for states where bootlegging exists however once the comparison group is modified to include bootlegging free states only this difference over time and across groups becomes statistically insignificant

optimal seigniorage the gold standard and central bank financing this paper extends the theory of optimal seigniorage to allow for money production costs an important implication is tha t high money production costs along with a requirement that the monet ary branch of government self finance its operation severs the connecti on between the tax rate on output and the tax rate on money using u s data the authors find that tax rates on output and money move together only during periods when the government controls both tax rates and there is a close correspondence between revenue produced b y the monetary authority and revenue transferred to the treasury copyright 1993 by ohio state university press

price and income elasticities of disaggregated import demand results from uecms and an application this paper presents an empirical analysis of the demand for maize milk powder butter and rice imports in cyprus using annual time series data covering the period 1975 1994 none of these products is produced in cyprus and all the necessary quantities are imported to meet domestic demand the primary objective of the paper is to derive long run price and income elasticities of import demand that can be used to analyse the impact of various policies such as the adoption of the common agricultural policy cap when and if the republic of cyprus joins the european union eu in so doing the paper takes on board some recent developments in time series econometrics the cointegration test used the bounds test is a recent test and is based on the estimation of an unrestricted error correction model uecm parsimonious models were derived using hendry s general to specific approach the estimated elasticities were subsequently used to quantify some of the implications for cyprus had the cap been ope

demand for beef and chicken products separability and structural change several studies have indicated that the recent shift from beef to poultry in consumption is not entirely caused by changes in rela tive prices or income braschler chavas dahlgran hudson and vertin moschini and meilke frank thurman most studies of structural change have focused on red meat consumption only thurman has looked closely at the poultry market and no one has considered poultry products yet the mix of chicken products marketed changed dramat ically during the last twenty years and should have influenced aggregate meat demand the share of broiler slaughter marketed as whole birds declined from 74 in 1965 to 28 in 1985 while cut up parts and processed chick en products increased from 26 to 72 whole birds are inferior goods and cut up parts and processed chicken are normal goods haidacher et al the shift in chicken prod uct mix away from whole birds should have increased the preference for total chicken in this article two related questions are ad dressed first do consumers allocate expendi tures among meats by animal origin or by product type second does disaggregation of meat into products in a meat demand model give insight into the causes of structural

the impact of un conventional expansionary monetary policy on income inequality lessons from japan this paper analyzes the impact of conventional and unconventional monetary policy on income inequality in japan using hitherto unexplored data from the japan household panel survey empirical evid

the demand for cigarettes in japan a two stage budgeting procedure was used to estimate demand elasticities for cigarettes in japan cigarettes were disaggregated into japanese u s and rest of world testing for habit effects was performed at both stages results indicated that habit effects occur for total expenditures on cigarettes but not between types

the inverse almost ideal demand system abstract a new demand system related to the almost ideal demand system aids of deaton and muellbauer is developed and illustrated this inverse aids iaids retains all of the desirable theoretical properties of the aids model with the exception of consistent aggregation an empirical issue is whether a linear approximation will work as well for the iaids as it has for the aids model since quantities are not as highly correlated as prices an application to u s meat demand demonstrates that the linear approximation of the iaids is excellent which enhanced the ease and range of application

testing dynamic specification for import demand models the case of cotton error correction models impose few prior restrictions on dynamic model specification and allow the data to determine model structure despite this obvious advantage few applications have adopted the error correction model to explain trade flows an error correction model of cotton import demand is estimated for france japan and hongkong a variety of tests are applied to determine the dynamic structure of the model it is found that the most general models are those that best fit the data for cotton import demand long run elasticities from these general models are significantly different than elasticities derived from a comparable static model

food consumption in urban china an empirical analysis this paper examines consumption patterns of urban households in china using aggregated household consumption data a demand system comprising six commodities rice pork vegetables fish eggs and fruits is estimated using a two stage budgeting procedure which incorporates an almost ideal deamnd system aids in each stage elasticity estimates from the system are plausible and consistent with other relevant studies results from this study strengthen the evidence of the emergence of a large chinese market for non stable food the study provides rationale and basis for additional research into chinese food consumption especially processed food

has government any role in money abstract recent interest in monetary reform has been sparked by the emergence of a world irredeemable paper money system in light of this interest we review the current validity of four good reasons friedman advanced in 1960 to rationalize government intervention we conclude that the forces that produced government involvement in the past will persist deregulation of financial intermediaries is desirable on grounds of market efficiency though it is an open question whether government should continue as lender of last resort we expect that the present world fiat money standard will neither degenerate into hyperinflation nor revert to a commodity standard

a century of us central banking goals frameworks accountability several key episodes in the 100 year history of the federal reserve have everal key episodes in the 100 year history of the federal reserve have been referred to in various contexts with the adjective great attached to been referred to in various contexts with the adjective great attached to them the great experiment of the federal reserve s founding the great them the great experiment of the federal reserve s founding the great depression the great infl ation and subsequent disinfl ation the great moderation depression the great infl ation and subsequent disinfl ation the great moderation and the recent great recession here i ll use this sequence of great episodes and the recent great recession here i ll use this sequence of great episodes to discuss the evolution over the past 100 years of three key aspects of federal to discuss the evolution over the past 100 years of three key aspects of federal reserve policymaking the goals of policy the policy framework and accountability reserve policymaking the goals of policy the policy framework and accountability and communication the changes over time in these three areas provide a useful and communication the changes over time in these three areas provide a useful perspective i believe on how the role and functioning of the federal reserve have perspective i believe on how the role and functioning of the federal reserve have changed since its founding in 1913 as well as some lessons for the present and for changed since its founding in 1913 as well as some lessons for the present and for the future the future

sufficient and necessary conditions for information to have social value in pure exchange this paper extends corrects and unifies earlier statements concerning the social value of public information as well as the no trading conditions in pure exchange sufficient and necessary conditions are provided for both the single period and two period cases in a postsignal trading model the social value of information is shown to be closely linked to the allocational efficiency of the market the degree of homogeneity of prior beliefs and of information structures the time additivity of preferences and the efficiency of endowments we conclude that the case in favor of public information is much stronger than previously suggested

effects of an increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes the economic impact of a cigarette tax increase on the cigarette and tobacco industries depends on market forces and on the u s tobacco program this study uses a log linear equilibrium displacement model parameter estimates from prior studies and recent data to indicate quantitative effects international trade implies that the effect of the tax increase on the price of domestic tobacco will be small even in the case of fixed tobacco quotas however the effects on tobacco producers revenue quota lease rates and producer economic rents can be significant depending on the response of u s tobacco policy to a tax change

non stationarity and the import demand for virgin olive oil in the european union the aim of this study is to analyse the importation of virgin olive oil to european union countries paying special attention to the spanish export contribution the method used is based on the estimation of an imports demand system the novelty of the paper lies not in the modelling approach but in the explicit consideration of the univariate characteristics of series that is included in the analysis since prices are non stationary cointegration among them has been tested results indicate that they are cointegrated and that homogeneity holds as a result relative prices are included in the imports demand system structural change is also considered so as to account for the entrance of both spain and greece into the eu during the period studied results demonstrate the leadership of spain within the eu virgin olive oil market as well as the increasing competitiveness of greek oil

monetary policy inequality and political instability voters in the industrialised countries are increasingly expressing dissatisfaction by dissenting from the established political parties and candidates based on the concepts of justice by hayek rawls and buchanan we argue that the growing dissatisfaction is rooted in the asymmetric pattern of monetary policies since the mid 1980s for two reasons first the structurally declining interest rates and the unconventional monetary policy measures have granted privileges to specific groups second the increasingly expansionary monetary policies have negative growth effects which have reduced the scope for compensation of the ones excluded from the privileges as a result the acceptance of the prevailing economic and political order is undermined and political instability increases

substitutability for farm commodities the demand for u s tobacco in cigarette manufacturing a generalized leontief cost function and system of factor demand functions for the domestic cigarette industry is estimated we strongly rejected fixed proportions both imported tobacco and other inputs are substitutes for u s tobacco the estimated output constant price elasticities are combined with the output effect calculated from cost shares and time series estimates of the cigarette demand elasticity and an export demand elasticity from previous studies to consider the effects of reducing the u s price support competition from foreign tobacco implies that a u s price decline would increase significantly the quantity of u s tobacco demanded

does unconventional monetary policy affect inequality evidence from japan inequality has been largely ignored in the literature and practice of monetary policy but is gaining more attention recently here we exclusively focus on the impact of unconventional monetary policy ump on inequality we look at how the recent ump in japan affected inequality using household survey data our vector auto regression var results show that ump widened income inequality after 2008q3 as the bank of japan boj resumed its zero interest rate policy and reinstated ump this is largely due to the portfolio channel to the best of our knowledge this is the first study to empirically analyse the distributional impact of ump japan s extensive experience with ump may hold important policy implications for other countries

the implications of heterogeneous habit in consumer beverage purchases on soda and sin taxes abstract in this article we study the heterogeneity of habit strength in households demand for regular carbonated sweetened beverages csbs and beer in the united states a demand model that nests a smooth transition function is used to describe habit based consumption patterns revealing heterogeneous strengths of habits among households we find that more habitual consumers those with a strong preference for a particular product are not as sensitive to price or expenditure as the aggregate population this finding is further supported by simulations of the potential effects of soda and beer taxes we find the aggregate response to soda and beer taxes is smaller than when the influence of habit is assumed to be homogeneous

monetary policy vagabonding liquidity and bursting bubbles in new and emerging markets an overinvestment view credit booms have globally fuelled hikes in stock raw material and real estate markets which have culminated in the recent us subprime market crisis we explain the global asset market booms since the mid 1980s based on the overinvestment theories of hayek wicksell and schumpeter we argue that ample liquidity supply originating in the large industrialized countries has contributed to overinvestment cycles in japan east asia new markets in the industrial countries and many emerging market economies expansionary monetary policies in response to the burst of bubbles are argued to have contributed to vagabonding bubbles around the globe

identification of habit in japanese food consumption abstract demand models were estimated for five commodities using annual retail level japanese data estimates were made with the houthakker taylor houthakker h s taylor l d 1970 consumer demand in the united states analysis and projections harvard university press new york ma state adjustment model significant lags were found for meat and cereal which means that habit is important for these commodities some habit affects were also found for seafood

price and income elasticities of demand for passenger transport fuels in spain implications for public policies abstract the significant increase in passenger transport activity cars experienced by spain and its associated increase in energy consumption have several associated negative aspects including a greater dependence on foreign energy sources and higher ghg emissions therefore reducing the level of transport activity would bring important socioeconomic and environmental benefits the aim of this paper which focuses on energy consumption in the passenger transport is fourfold 1 to provide a diagnostic of energy consumption in the spanish passenger transport system and the related problems 2 to develop a model to calculate price and income elasticities of demand for transport fuel 3 to apply this model to the spanish passenger transport sector 4 to infer policy recommendations derived from the results of the diagnostic and the model it is claimed that in view of those low price elasticities and high income elasticities and if a reduction in the scale of transport activity is deemed socially desirable a combination of instruments is necessary fuel taxes play an important role within this combination apart from their long term effects the low price elasticity of demand for transport fuel would allow the collection of a significant amount of revenues which could eventually be earmarked to encourage reductions in private transport demand and modal shifts with other instruments

evaluating the linearized almost ideal demand system linearizing the almost ideal demand system laids by recourse to the stone share weighted price index is common practice two issues are addressed here first scrutiny of the errors in variables implications of the linearization reveals that not only is the sur estimator inconsistent but a consistent iv estimator cannot be constructed second some alternatives to the green alston elasticities specifically designed for the laids model are developed but neither these nor the green alston elasticities are found to have any advantages over the conventional elasticity formulae some errors in the green alston 1990 paper are corrected the inconsistency and elasticity issues are documented by a monte carlo investigation