bubbles and experience an experiment we investigate the occurrence of bubble crash pricing patterns in laboratory financial markets with a mixture of experienced and inexperienced traders we find that even with a minority of experienced traders bubbles are substantially abated

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

semiparametric estimation and consumer demand this paper considers the implementation of semiparametric methods in the empirical analysis of consumer demand the application is to the estimation of the engel curve relationship and uses the british family expenditure survey household composition is modelled using an extended partially linear framework this is shown to provide a useful method for pooling non parametric engel curves across households of different demographic composition c 1998 john wiley sons ltd

engel s law diet diversity and the quality of food consumption increasing income brings about a decline in the relative importance of food consumption a wider spread of spending patterns and a demand for higher quality goods using an index number approach this article analyzes these three closely related tendencies stripping out the impact of prices from the dispersion of food expenditures gives a volume based measure of diet diversity that is relevant for nutrition using unpublished data from the world bank s international comparison program for 31 items of food in more than 150 countries we find that diets of rich countries are substantially more diverse than those of the poor and that volumes are the more appropriate way to measure the inequality of diversity the quality of the food basket based on the luxury necessity distinction of consumption increases with income but the elasticity is small there is a modest tendency for the structure of prices to be regressive since prices of luxuries relative to necessities are lower in richer countries additionally our diversity and quality measures are shown to have implications for demand analysis and well being

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

thar she bursts reducing confusion reduces bubbles to explore why bubbles frequently emerge in the experimental asset market model of smith suchanek and williams 1988 we vary the fundamental value process constant or declining and the cash to asset value ratio constant or increasing we observe high mispricing in treatments with a declining fundamental value while overvaluation emerges when coupled with an increasing c a ratio a questionnaire reveals that the declining fundamental value process confuses subjects as they expect the fundamental value to stay constant running the experiment with a different context stocks of a depletable gold mine instead of stocks significantly reduces mispricing and overvaluation as it reduces confusion jel c91 d14 g11 g12

intrahousehold resource allocation in rural pakistan a semiparametric analysis we estimate semiparametric engel curves for rural pakistan using a large household survey this allows us to obtain consistent estimates of the effects of household size and composition on consumption patterns even when these demographic variables are correlated with an unknown function of income the coefficients on the household composition variables are used to infer patterns of intrahousehold allocation while there is little evidence of gender bias amongst children adult males appear to get more than adult females there is a tendency amongst males for workers to get more than dependents there is no evidence of differential treatment of the elderly and higher birth order children we identify substantial economies of size in food consumption we also find that engel curces for food adult goods and child goods are nonlinear which suggests that the piglog class of demand models in inappropriate

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

inspiration coalition and substitution external influences on postcommunist transformations there has been a recent explosion of interest in the external influences on the political and economic transformations of postcommunist states this article consolidates several analytical advances in this literature and distills three main functions of external actors namely to lengthen the time horizons of postcommunist politicians to expand the circle of interested reformers and to deter opponents of reform the article argues that a focus on external influences is a growth area for good conceptual work only if it addresses the union of foreign and domestic influences rather than treating them as stylized alternative explanations the central point is that outside actors should be considered as striving to influence the choices of existing domestic actors with whom they can be seen to form a kind of informal coalition at bottom outsiders do best through a combination of strategies strengthening domestic actors already committed to their approach winning over new domestic actors to their priorities and preventing the unconvinced from obstructing reforms

bubbles crashes and endogenous expectations in experimental spot asset markets1 spot asset trading is studied in an environment in which all investors receive the same dividend from a known probability distribution at the end of each of t 15 or 30 trading periods fourteen of twenty two experiments exhibit price bubbles followed by crashes relative to intrinsic dividend value when traders are experienced this reduces but does not eliminate the probability of a bubble the regression of changes in mean price on lagged excess bids number of bids minus the number of offers in the previous period p pt a f b 1 o l supports the hypothesis that a e d the one period expected value of the dividend and that f 0 where excess bids is a surrogate measure of excess demand arising from homegrown capital gains losses expectations thus when bt 1 o goes to zero we have convergence to rational expectations in the sense of fama 1970 that arbitrage becomes unprofitable the observed bubble phenomenon can also be interpreted as a form of temporary myopia tirole 1982 from which agents learn that capital gains expectations are only temporarily sustainable ultimately inducing common expectations or priors tirole 1982 four of twenty six experiments all using experienced subjects yield outcomes that appear to the chart s eye to converge early to rational expectations although even in these cases we get 0 and small price fluctuations of a few cents that invite scalping

traders expectations in asset markets experimental evidence we elicit traders predictions of future price trajectories in repeated experimental markets for a 15 period lived asset we find that individuals beliefs about prices are adaptive and primarily based on past trends in the current and previous markets in which they have participated most traders do not anticipate market downturns the first time they participate in a market and when experienced they typically overestimate the time remaining before market peaks and downturns occur when prices deviate from fundamental values belief data are informative to an observer in predicting the direction of future price movements and the timing of market peaks

prices and quality effects in cross sectional demand analysis a conceptual clarification of the sources and meaning of cross sectional price variability is used to motivate a theoretical and econometric framework for the estimation of cross sectional demand functions quality effects are distinguished from supply related price variability to identify cross sectional demand for disaggregated food commodities an empirical application using data from the 1977 78 nationwide food consumption survey indicates that parameter differences resulting from a failure to adjust cross sectional prices for quality effects are likely to be small for relatively homogenous disaggregated food commodities in demand analysis with cross sectional household budget data it is usually assumed that prices are constant allen and bowley prais and houthakker george and king given this assumption engel functions are estimated where expenditure or quantity is regressed on income or total expenditures family size and other demographic characteristics the assumption that cross sectional price effects are absent or are captured adequately by spatial and temporal dummy variables has not been evaluated empirically whether cross sectional price effects can be treated in this manner has implications for the specification of cross sectional demand functions as well as the estimation of engel functions there is a considerable literature on estimating price elasticities with cross sectional data most of the applications utilize timeseries cross sectional data annual or quarterly household consumption surveys and

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

how do experienced traders respond to inflows of inexperienced traders an experimental analysis we conducted asset market experiments where one experienced subject interacts with five inexperienced subjects to investigate how experienced subjects change their price forecasts and trading behavior when faced with strategic uncertainty caused by inflows of inexperienced subjects only half the experienced subjects initially forecasted prices deviating more from the fundamental values in the market with five inexperienced subjects than in the final round of the experiment in which they had previously participated furthermore the majority of our experienced subjects did not change their trading behavior many experienced subjects act as price stabilizers when the inflow of inexperienced subjects is not associated with other changes in market conditions

price bubbles and crashes in experimental call markets abstract price bubbles relative to intrinsic dividend value are observed using a call market trading institution market prices tend to track intrinsic value only when the same group of highly experienced traders participate in three consecutive 15 round markets

economies of scale location age and sex discrimination in household demand abstract upper limits to household equivalence scales are computed using data from a survey of more than 23 000 spanish households to establish the existence of economies of location cost differentials due to age and sex discrimination the results question the use of some common measurements of income distribution and poverty and should be taken into account in setting the standards for public welfare payments

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

estimation of a complete system of nonlinear engel curves further evidence from box cox engel curves for sri lanka the specification and estimation of engle curves has drawn much attention over many years since the earliest attempt of working 1943 among the many approaches a complete system of engel curves stood out as more appealing as it explicitly imposes the important budget constraint in the allocation of family budgets further extended researches were undertaken on nonlinear specifications as they are likely to produce results that are closer to the reality than the linear systems beneito 2003 attempted box cox form of nonlinear specification but ended up estimating a set of linear equations using seemingly unrelated regression equations method the present research extends the previous work on engle curves in two ways first by incorporating key demographic characteristics into the determination of expenditures in the specification of the box cox form of nonlinear system and second by using primary micro data from large household surveys to estimate the system by nonlinear estimation methods our esti

poverty and household size the widely held view that larger families tend to be poorer in developing countries has influenced research and policy the scope for size economies in consumption cautions against this view we find that the correlation between poverty and size vanishes in pakistan when the size elasticity of the cost of living is about 0 6 this turns out to be the elasticity implied by a modified version of the food share method of setting scales by contrast some measures of child nutritional status indicate an elasticity of unity consideration of the weight attached to child versus adult welfare may help resolve the non robustness of demographic profiles of poverty excerpt

the chinese warrants bubble in 2005 2008 over a dozen put warrants traded in china went so deep out of the money that they were almost certain to expire worthless nonetheless each warrant was traded more than three times each day at substantially inflated prices this bubble is unique in that the underlying stock prices make warrant fundamentals publicly observable and that warrants have predetermined finite maturities this sample allows us to examine a set of bubble theories in particular our analysis highlights the joint effects of short sales constraints and heterogeneous beliefs in driving bubbles and confirms several key findings of the experimental bubble literature jel g12 g13 o16 p34

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

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

to see is to believe common expectations in experimental asset markets abstract we experimentally manipulate agents information regarding the rationality of others in a setting in which previous studies have found irrationality to be present namely the asset market experiments introduced by smith et al 1988 recent studies suggest that mispricing in such markets may be an artefact of confusion which can be reduced by training subjects to understand the diminishing fundamental value we reconsider this view and propose that when it is made public knowledge that training has occurred this may also reduce uncertainty over the behavior of others and facilitate the formation of common expectations our design disentangles the direct effect of training from the indirect effect of its public knowledge and our results demonstrate a distinct and statistically significant effect of public knowledge over and above that of training alone

the inflow effect trader inflow and price efficiency abstract we investigate the impact of cash and trader inflow on price efficiency in multi period experimental asset markets implementing eight treatments with 672 subjects we find that i the joint inflow of cash and traders triggers strong overvaluation and massive price run ups inflow effect remarkably the effect occurs in almost all of the 30 markets with joint cash and trader inflow and is very robust the effect even prevails in markets with complete and symmetric fundamental information we further show that ii in treatments with the joint inflow of cash and traders prices crash to fundamentals towards maturity of the asset the analysis of traders beliefs reveals that iii despite fundamental values staying constant beliefs about fundamentals co move with upwardly trending prices finally we report a speculative motive only among the optimists in treatments where we observe the inflow effect

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

demand for food commodities by income groups in indonesia an analysis of the structure of demand was performed on household data classified into income groups for urban indonesia a demographically augmented linearized almost ideal demand system was used to estimate the structural parameters of the demand equations endogenous switching regression techniques yielded unbiased and consistent demand parameter estimates for the low income group which had a large number of zeros for some food groups standard seemingly unrelated equation techniques were used to estimate the demand parameters for the other income groups the results showed demands for the medium to high and high income households to be responsive to prices income and demographic variables demands for the medium to low income households were responsive to income and prices only demands for low income households were responsive to income and prices of rice and fish only

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

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

simple tests of distributional effects on macroeconomic equations the presence of distributional effects in macroeconomic equations is shown to coincide with nonlinearity in micro behavioral relationships parameters estimated with aggregate data as in representative agent models contain distributional biases that are not measurable using aggregate data alone tests for distributional effects and other measures of the extent of aggregation problems are derived using distributional data observed over time significant distributional effects are noted for a model of annual aggregate u s commodity expenditure data a static model that accommodates individual heterogeneity is found to be statistically equivalent to a simply dynamic model that accommodates first order autocorrelation

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

testing for consistent aggregation this paper designs workable empirical procedures for testing or imposing supply demand price aggregators only single equation methods are considered to shift the focus from any particular optimizing paradigm toward the necessities for correctly tabulating firm level supplies demands and aggregate supply demand both macro and micro level tests for consistent aggregation are developed and constructive rules for aggregation based upon empirically observed micro behavior are provided in tabular form empirical tests reveal no support for the aggregate price most commonly reported by usda the constructive rules are then used to develop a new wheat price index consistent with supply aggregation

purchasing behaviour of higher and lower income shoppers a look at breakfast cereals scanner data for breakfast cereals are used to estimate demand elasticities for six supermarket stores in two distinct socioeconomic areas three stores are in lowincome locations and three are in high income locations a time series cross section model is estimated for five product categories across six cross sections over forty two weeks results show lower income shoppers to have more elastic demands for four of the five product categories private label cold cereals the top ten brands of cold cereals all other brands of cold cereals and hot cereals price is not statistically significant for a fifth product category snack cereals

the effect of short selling on bubbles and crashes in experimental spot asset markets a series of experiments illustrate that relaxing short selling constraints lowers prices in experimental asset markets but does not induce prices to track fundamentals we argue that prices in experimental asset markets are influenced by restrictions on short selling capacity and limits on the cash available for purchases restrictions on short sales in the form of cash reserve requirements and quantity limits on short positions behave in a similar manner a simulation model based on delong et al 1990 generates average price patterns that are similar to the observed data asset market bubbles are persistent deviations of prices from fundamentals to the extent that bubbles exist they can influence investment levels and the allocation of capital and thereby have considerable economic effects in recognition of their potential importance the question of the existence and pervasiveness of bubbles has been a focus of extensive empirical investigation see e g shiller 1981 blanchard and watson 1982 diba and grossman 1988 and west 1988 these studies yield mixed results regarding the empirical relevance of bubble phenomena one source of the differences in conclusions may be that because the fundamental value of the assets cannot be observed tests of the presence of bubbles are joint tests with the particular specification of the process guiding the evolution of fundamentals also being tested the availability of short selling is widely believed to make bubble formation less likely one rationale for such a belief is the notion that the cause of asset market bubbles is a constraint on the ability of traders to speculate on future downward price movements see e g miller 1977 jarrow 1980 diamond and verrecchia 1987 or figlewski and webb 1993 in the absence of short sales traders may sell only the shares in their portfolios the availability of short sales relaxes this constraint in this paper we study empirically the effect of allowing short sales on both the incidence and magnitude of market bubbles we choose a setting in which the fundamental value of the asset is clearly and unambiguously defined and known at all times and bubbles typically occur namely we use the experimental environment that smith suchanek and williams 1988 introduce while

connective power solar electrification and social change in kenya summary market based rural electrification with solar energy is increasingly common in developing countries this article revolves around three main claims about solar electrification in kenya s unsubsidized market 1 the benefits of solar electrification are captured primarily by the rural middle class 2 solar electricity plays a modest role in supporting economically productive and education related activities but connective applications such as television radio and cellular telephone charging often receive a higher priority 3 solar electrification is more closely tied to increased television use the expansion of markets more rural urban communication and other processes that increase rural urban connectivity than to poverty alleviation sustainable development or the appropriate technology movement

determinants of price elasticities for private labels and national brands of cheese an almost ideal demand system model is developed and used to estimate price elasticities for us cheese sold at retail growing consumption of cheese coupled with fierce competition between private labels and national brands serves as motivating factors for this study per capita consumption of cheese grew by 75 during 1980 2004 and private labels captured a rising share of this growth private labels today account for 35 of market share national brands for the remaining 65 kraft accounts for 45 of national brands but price increases for kraft brands led to a sizeable price gap between its brands and private labels this gap helped to stimulate growth of private labels marketing managers seek to capitalize on both growing cheese sales and price gaps for brands relevant information for marketing managers is consumer sensitivity to price changes this study uses 69 weeks of scanner data with consumers segmented by income levels to derive price elasticities for both lower and higher income consumer

economies of scale household size and the demand for food household scale economies are plausibly attributed to shared household public goods that make larger households better off at the same level of per capita resources larger households should therefore have higher per capita consumption of private goods such as food provided that they do not substitute too much toward the effectively cheaper public goods the evidence shows exactly the opposite data from rich and poor countries indicate that at constant per capita total expenditure the per capita demand for food decreases with household size and that it does so most in the poorest countries where substitution should be the least

the great divide literacy nationalism and the communist collapse as communist regimes collapsed in the years 1989 91 communist parties and leaders exited power in roughly half the cases the causes and the impact of this variation have generated considerable controversy the authors show that the combined timing and content of the introduction of mass literacy was responsible for generating the national standards and comparisons that either sustained the legitimacy of communist party rule or led to its rapid and complete demise during the collapse of communist regimes mass literacy explains more of the patterns of the communist exit than do structural modernization or communist legacy accounts and it provides a clear and sustained causal chain

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

nonspeculative bubbles in experimental asset markets lack of common knowledge of rationality vs actual irrationality we report the results of an experiment designed to study the role of speculation in the formation of bubbles and crashes in laboratory asset markets in a setting in which speculation is not possible bubbles and crashes are observed the results suggest that the departures from fundamental values are not caused by the lack of common knowledge of rationality leading to speculation but rather by behavior that itself exhibits elements of irrationality much of the trading activity that accompanies bubble formation in markets where speculation is possible is due to the fact that there is no other activity available for participants in the experiment

the structural reshaping of globalization implications for strategic sectors profiting from innovation and the multinational enterprise the rapid reshaping of the global economic order requires fundamental shifts in international business scholarship and management practice new forms of protectionist policies new types of internationalization motives and new tools of techno nationalism may lead to what we call bifurcated governance at the macro level and value chain decoupling at the micro level as a result innovation networks will require novel reconfigurations we examine the emerging constraints on multinational enterprises imposed by a bifurcated world order we also discuss how the dynamic capabilities framework can guide scholars and managers alike to achieve new forms of evolutionary fitness

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

the two index pigl demand system abstract the extended pigl demand system is shown to be the only solution to a two index income aggregation problem where at least one index is the sample mean of income and aggregate quantities are aggregate demands

the imitation innovation trade off does borrowing dull the edge of husbandry this article examines the proposition that there is a trade off between imitation and innovation when state elites try to borrow institutional designs from other polities after synthesizing theoretical propositions both for and against a trade off the article develops evidence from case studies of two periods in which such institutional borrowing was widely practiced the post world war ii american occupation of germany and german reunification after 1989 it concludes that imitation sparked innovation in both periods although for two very different reasons the article emphasizes the relation of the research findings to theories of institutional creation and change

the effects of food stamps on food expenditures comment in a recent issue of the journal devaney and fraker df warn us of a statistical problem sample weights in complex cross section surveys however they ignore other econometric difficulties that raise serious questions about their conclusions in estimating the marginal propensity to consume food out of food stamp benefits mcpf they conclude that the estimates are very sensitive to the use of weighted or unweighted data p 99 they find that the weighted estimates of mpcf out of food stamps are approximately double the unweighted estimates even when sample stratifiers are included in the model they conclude that researchers must carefully examine the sampling weights in conjunction with any future analysis of the effects of food stamp benefits p 104 with the increasing availability and use of crosssectional data sets in economic analysis df appropriately raise the issue of weighting schemes in parameter estimation we want to reinforce the authors

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

a complete system of engel curves in the spanish economy the main goal of this article is the estimation of the consumption income relationship along with socio economic factors using cross section data from the spanish household expenditure survey 1991 the data has been grouped according to exogenous criteria to avoid the problem of null expenditure first a non linear system of equation is estimated from which the linear form that best fits the used data is tested finally income elasticities are calculated considering three alternative formulations depending on how an initial income increment is distributed among consumers income elasticities are shown for the whole income distribution

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

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

explaining political and economic change in post communist eastern europe old legacies new institutions hegemonic norms and international pressures this article presents a framework for the analysis of regime change in post communist eastern europe it examines two competing approaches the legacies of the past and the imperatives of liberalization as alternative causal factors shaping the trajectories of regime change the article argues that the debate between these two approaches has important implications for comparative research methodology and design to the extent that past legacies dominate the path of post communist regime change comparisons with other regions emerging from an authoritarian past will yield less insight the authors claim however that the immediate context of norms institutions and international pressures shapes the particular way that legacies influence outcomes thus they conclude that cross regional research is likely to be fruitful and should be pursued

bubbles and information an experiment a symmetric distribution of information although omnipresent in real markets is rarely considered in experimental economics we study whether information about imminent future dividends can abate bubbles in experimental asset markets we find that markets with asymmetrically informed traders have significantly smaller bubbles than markets with symmetrically informed or uninformed traders hence fundamental values are better reflected in market prices implying higher market efficiency when some traders know more than others about future dividends this suggests that bubbles are abated when traders know that a subset of them have an edge in information over others this paper was accepted by brad barber teck ho and terrance odean special issue editors

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

bubbles and experience an experiment with a steady inflow of new traders we revisit the effect of traders experience on price bubbles by introducing either one third or two thirds steady inflow of new traders in each of four consecutive experimental asset markets we find that bubbles are still reduced in the treatments with a steady inflow of new traders but at a slower pace compared to the baseline treatment in which new traders are only introduced in the last market our analysis of individual trading behavior shows that the slower abatement of bubbles in the inflow treatments can be attributed mainly to the inexperienced traders who make more mistakes than experienced traders

futures contracting and dividend uncertainty in experimental asset markets prices in experimental asset markets tend to bubble and then crash to dividend value at the end of the asset s useful life explanations for this phenomenon are 1 that participants cannot form reliable future price expectations or 2 dividend risk aversion we report the results of experiments to test these hypotheses in one experimental series a futures market is introduced so that participants can obtain information on future share prices in another series of experiments the per period dividend is known with certainty the futures market treatment reduced the bubble the certain dividend treatment had little effect on the character of bubbles with inexperienced traders copyright 1995 by university of chicago press

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

democracy and the washington consensus abstract this paper argues that there is a substantial body of economic advice roughly summarized in the washington consensus that deserves to be endorsed across the political spectrum such endorsement would still leave a series of major economic issues most notably the tradeoff between efficiency and equity to be determined by the outcome of the political process it is argued that the left interpreted as those who give relatively more weight to equity will advance its cause by embracing the mainstream economics summarized by the consensus

engel s law and linear in moments aggregation aggregation of individual engel curves is considered such that aggregate food demand depends on the moments of the distribution of income across individuals given that aggregate demand is the sum of individual demands consistent aggregation imposes a structure called the linear in moments form this form is used to test whether the mean and second moment of income must be used to capture aggregate food demand empirical analysis strongly supports the proposition that both the mean and variance of income are required hence our results show that aggregate food demand under consistent aggregation is inherently sensitive to changes in the distribution of income

explaining the dominance of legacy unions in new democracies comparative insights from indonesia the continued dominance of legacy unions state backed unions inherited from the previous nondemocratic regime has received little scholarly scrutiny through an analysis of indonesia this article presents a focused theoretical framework for analyzing the staying power of legacy unions and the strategies they pursue to maintain their dominance the author argues that the capacity of legacy unions to survive is a product of inherited advantages membership institutional and legal and the transition context economic conditions union competition and partisan links legacy unions adopt three strategies for survival carrots sticks and reform and pursue a strategy of reform only when they retain meager inherited advantages and face an unfavorable transition context the article also offers suggestions for additional research to further develop the theoretical framework

an intertemporal analysis of expenditure elasticities under three expenditure specifications for sri lanka household income has been identified as one of the major determinants of demand for household goods in addition other household characteristics such as household size and composition are also fo

elasticities in aids models in the literature a variety of approaches have been used to calculate demand elasticities in almost ideal demand system aids models of demand it is common to estimate the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids instead of the aids when the la aids is estimated all of the previously reported approaches to compute elasticities are theoretically incorrect this paper presents correct formulas for la aids elasticities and illustrates the potential errors from using incorrect computing the almost ideal demand system aids of deaton and muellbauer 1980a b has become popular in recent years anderson and blundell blanciforti and green 1983a b blanciforti green and king chalfant eales and unnevehr fujii khaled and mak fulponi heien and willett murray parsons ray a variety of approaches to computing elasticities has been used and some of the approaches may lead to significant errors this paper clarifies the differences between alternative approaches to estimating demand elasticities in aids models

quality quantity spending and prices abstract one measure of the change in the quality of consumption is the degree to which the consumption basket as a whole moves towards more luxurious goods away from necessities we introduce two related measures based on the luxury necessity distinction one is an index of the extent to which the prices of luxuries change as compared to necessities while the second indexes the change in spending these two measures are interpreted as the price of and spending on quality the volume of quality is then spending deflated by its price using the recent international comparison program data for 100 countries we find that on average quality increases with income but at a slower rate luxuries are relatively more expensive in richer countries necessities cheaper and approximately 75 percent of additional spending on quality flows into a volume component with the remaining 25 percent accounted for by prices

thar she blows can bubbles be rekindled with experienced subjects we report 28 new experiment sessions consisting of up to three experience levels to examine the robustness of learning and error elimination among participants in a laboratory asset market and its effect on price bubbles our answer to the title question is yes we impose a large increase in liquidity and dividend uncertainty to shock the environment of experienced subjects who have converged to equilibrium and this treatment rekindles a bubble however in replications of that same challenging environment across three experience levels we discover that the environment yields a rare residual tendency to bubble even in the third experience session therefore a caveat must be placed on the effect of twice experienced subjects in asset markets in order for price bubbles to be extinguished the environment in which the participants engage in exchange must be stationary and bounded by a range of parameters experience including possible error elimination is not robust to major new environment changes in determining the characteristics of a price bubble jel c91 d83

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

household economies of scale in consumption theory and evidence household economies of scale arising from the existence of househo ld public goods increasing returns in household production and or bulk discounts are incorporated into a utility theoretic model of household demands individuals are assumed to be identical and symmetrically treated within households economies of scale parameters for five goods are estimated using the quadratic expenditu re system and data from the u s consumer expenditure survey on expenditures by all adult households results suggest the existence o f significant economies of scale in the consumption of all of the included goods with economies being especially pronounced in the consumption of shelter copyright 1988 by the econometric society

the effect of food stamps on food expenditures an assessment of findings from the nationwide food consumption survey estimates of the marginal propensity to consume food out of food stamp benefits based upon the low income supplement to the u s department of agriculture s nationwide food consumption survey are very sensitive to whether weighted or unweighted data are used in the analysis based on data from the 1977 78 survey we estimated identical models of household food expenditures using unweighted and weighted data weighted estimates of the marginal propensity to consume food out of food stamps are approximately double the unweighted estimates even when sample stratifiers are included in the model a small number of cases with large sampling weights are responsible for almost all of the difference between the weighted and unweighted estimates

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

a review of bubbles and crashes in experimental asset markets this paper discusses the literature on bubbles and crashes in the most commonly used experimental asset market design introduced by smith et al it documents the main findings based on the results from 41 published papers 3 book chapters and 20 working papers

speculative overpricing in asset markets with information flows in this paper we derive and experimentally test a theoretical model of speculation in multiperiod asset markets with public information flows the speculation arises from the traders heterogeneous posteriors as they make different inferences from sequences of public information this leads to overpricing in the sense that price exceeds the most optimistic belief about the real value of the asset we find evidence of speculative overpricing in both incomplete and complete markets where the information flow is a gradually revealed sequence of imperfect public signals about the state of the world we also find evidence of asymmetric price reaction to good news and bad news another feature of equilibrium price dynamics under our model markets with a relaxed short sale constraint exhibit less overpricing

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

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