the demand for beer wine and spirits a survey of the literature the demand for alcohol literature is vast and much conflicting information about the nature of the demand for alcoholic beverages has been published this paper presents a survey of the literature and then uses the technique of meta regression analysis to establish insights into the nature of the demand for beer wine and spirits unlike previous meta studies of the demand for alcoholic beverages this study adjusts for the precision of each elasticity estimate the analysis presented suggests reported elasticity estimates will be influenced by such factors as estimation technique data frequency and time period under consideration with respect to time the findings suggest that the demand for alcoholic beverages has become less inelastic since the mid 1950s and that the income elasticity has been falling since the mid 1960s the analysis also found support for the idea that alcohol as a commodity group is a necessity and that consumers respond to price discounting with inventory behaviour rather than true substitution behaviour little support is found for the idea that the demand for alcoholic beverages varies fundamentally across most countries although wine may be an exception language en

alcohol related crashes and alcohol availability in grass roots communities this paper employs a unique panel data from 111 small non metropolitan incorporated cities in california during a 108 month period from january 1981 to december 1989 in order to analyse the effect of alcohol availability on highway safety negative binomial regression models are estimated which include alcohol licences per square mile as a measure of alcohol availability theoretically the sign of the alcohol licence density is indeterminate as it reflects a trade off of its effect on traffic exposure and on the time price alcohol among the findings increases in the density of general alcohol licences for off site on site alcohol consumption are beneficial detrimental to highway safety whereas increasing the density of beer wine licences have non uniform effects additional findings important to municipal policymakers are that dui arrests and increasing the price of alcohol reduce alcohol related crashes

the demand for alcoholic drink in the united kingdom 1963 78 1983 the demand for alcoholic drink in the united kingdom 1963 78 applied economics vol 15 no 1 pp 125 140

estimating wage discrimination in the labor market if labor supply curves are not perfectly inelastic wage discrimination induces some minority workers to leave the labor force studies of discrimination that focus only on wage differentials overlook these disincentive effects on minority employment

detecting and removing discrimination under equal opportunities policies abstract this paper surveys part of the recent voluminous literature on the economics of discrimination focusing on two key questions first how should discrimination be measured and can in fact unambiguous estimates be derived as the basis for detecting where discrimination is present and setting in train measures to eliminate it second to what extent has the implementation of equal opportunities legislation improved the relative standing of women and minority workers in the labour force this section includes a discussion of the likely effects of recent changes in the law such as the equal value amendment in the uk or the introduction of comparable worth in the usa the survey concludes that our ability to detect discrimination at all precisely is still rudimentary and consequently policy measures are likely to be inefficient for this reason

the demand for domestic and imported alcoholic beverages in ontario canada a dynamic simultaneous equation approach the purpose of this paper is to estimate simultaneously dynamic demand functions and consequently income and price elasticities for domestic and imported alcoholic beverages for the province of ontario the methodology used is the almost ideal demand system originally developed by deaton and muellbauer 1980 augmented by pollak s 1970 habit formation hypothesis the empirical application uses time series 1958 1987 for imported and domestically produced spirits wine and beer the findings provide strong support favouring the dynamic version of the almost ideal demand system over its static alternative but little evidence of strong substitution between domestic and imported products

productivity and the role of college in narrowing the male female wage differential in the usa in 1980 this study analyses the impact that productivity factors and the particular role of college have upon the inequality in male and female wages using the 1980 1 100 public use sample the findings herein suggest that whereas both black and white females and black males who entered the labour force in 1975 or later possess productivity characteristics that are superior to their elder counterparts the productivity characteristics of white males entering the labour force over this period are significantly inferior to those possessed by older white males also in sharp contrast to a voluminous literature that concludes that college widens the wage gap between the sexes this analysis shows that college played a paramount role among the productivity characteristics in narrowing the gender wage differential in 1980

an analysis of the effects of higher education on wage differentials between blacks and whites by gender in the united states previous analyses that have examined the effect to higher education on the wage differences between blacks and whites have largely been focussed on males and failed to provide quantitative estimates of the impact that higher education has on discrimination and the black white wage differential for both genders in 1980 in particular we find that equalizing the years of college completed by black and white males reduces the wage differential by 14 conversely equalizing the years of college completed by black and white females exacerbates wage inequality by increasing the wage advantage accruing to black females by nearly 24 hence the egalitarian policy mission of higher education in narrowing wage inequality between blacks and whites is complicated by the issue of gender

cross section estimation of us demand for alcoholic beverage a flexible limited dependent variable model is used to examine us demand for alcoholic beverage parameterization and distributional assumptions of the double hurdle model cragg 1971 and tobit model tobin 1958 are rejected findings suggest that price income household composition and other characteristics have significant effects on alcohol consumption income and own price elasticities are significant but relatively small

direct estimates of the demand for race and sex discrimination for empirical economists one of the most fruitful areas of research has been the examination of racial sexual differences in wages and employment opportunities the dynamic movement of relative wages during the 1960s not only aroused widespread interest among the academic community it also spurred the search for ways to quantify both the level of wage discrimination and the secular changes in wage discrimination the two principle research models used in this regard have been what i shall refer to as the relative demand curve and wage decomposition approaches both approaches are inspired by the model exposited in gary becker s seminal work the economics of discrimination the relative demand curve approach interprets the intercept and time trend variables and secular changes in these variables as discrimination shifters in regression of relative wages on the relative quantities of blacks to whites the wage decomposition approach on the other hand looks at separate race specific wage regressions and takes the difference in the regression coefficients weighted by the mean value of the respective variable as indicators of wage discrimination in the next section i argue that both of these empirical approaches to estimating wage discrimination or changes in wage discrimination are intrinsically incapable of measuring becker s tastes for discrimination variable in section iii a new empirical approach to estimating wage discrimination the production function approach is presented and applied in section iv to a time series cross section of black and white

discrimination fact or fiction an examination using an alternative approach women earn less than men blacks earn less than whites these facts are blatantly observable in the economy with the proliferation of civil rights legislation in the last two decades social scientists have become increasingly concerned with the determination of the wage gap attributable to discrimination because workers have different productivities statistical methods have been used to isolate the discrimination effect from wage differences justified by differences in productivity the primary method estimates an equation with wages expressed as a function of productivity and sex or race since productivity cannot be directly observed a number of proxies for productivity have been used such as education tenure and experience statisticians 11 have shown that the necessity of using proxies results in statistical biases which may tend to overestimate discrimination they have shown that mismeasuring any independent variable can impart a bias on each regression coefficient thereby causing a severe misestimate of discrimination these errors are proportional to the degree of mismeasurement the relative degree of error variance in the independent variables as well as to the amount of intercorrelation between each variable and race or

the human capital approach to black white earnings inequality some unsettled questions the persistence of earnings differences between blacks and whites in the united states has been a topic that has received a substantial amount of attention in both theoretical and empirical research in economics the differential in earnings typically is tied to racial differences in human capital accumulation this paper advances a systematic critique of the human capital approach to black white inequality inadequacies are identified in human capital theory as a general theory of inequality as well as a specific theory of racial inequality the critique suggests that a serious analysis of the black white earnings gap will require an entirely new approach to the study of racial income inequality

the demand for alcohol in the united kingdom using the aids model we show that there exists for the uk a stable long run relationship between expenditure shares on beer cider spirits and wine alcohol prices total alcohol expenditure and a range of non economic variables relating to advertising licensing the employment social class and demographic characteristics of consumers and climate our estimates of key price and income elasticities generally lie between those found from other time series studies which exclude most of these non economic variables and those found from cross section studies which generally include them however the restrictions required for separability homegeneity and symmetry although not those for perfect price aggregation are decisively rejected

the impact of improved maize varieties on poverty in mexico a propensity score matching approach summary this study examines the adoption of improved maize germplasm in oaxaca and chiapas in mexico it employs a propensity score matching approach to analyze the impact of the adoption of improved maize varieties on household income and poverty reduction using cross sectional data of 325 farmers from the two regions the findings reveal a robust positive and significant impact of improved maize variety adoption on farm household welfare measured by per capita expenditure and poverty reduction specifically the empirical results suggest that adoption of improved maize varieties helped raise household per capita expenditure by an average of 136 173 mexican pesos thereby reducing their probability of falling below the poverty line by roughly 19 31

cross country alcohol consumption comparison an application of the rotterdam demand system this paper analyses the consumption patterns of the three beverages beer wine and spirits in nine countries australia canada finland japan new zealand norway sweden the uk and the us using the rotterdam demand system a cross country comparison of the results shows that in most countries i wine consumption has grown at a fasteer rate than beer and spirits ii the proportion of consumers expenditure on alcohol is declining iii beer is a necessity and spirits is a luxury iv the demand for the three beverages is price inelastic and iv all three beverages are pair wise substitutes we also investigated the hypothesis of identical parameters for all countries by pooling the data across countries and found that the data do not support the hypothesis

are frequency and intensity of participation decision bearing aspects of consumption an analysis of drinking behaviour analysing quantity consumed per period implies a restriction on decisions about how frequently and intensely to consume this quantity hypothesis is rejected based on estimated equations for the frequency and intensity of spirit consumption consequently a simultaneous equation system for frequency and intensity is estimated as they enter the budget constraint as a multiplicative term income and education levels are found to be negatively related to intensity but not frequency this may reflect differences in the shadow prices of frequency and intensity for different socioeconomic groups or heterogeneous preferences for intoxication and health distinguishing between these aspects of drinking patterns is important for the evaluation of the price responsiveness of harmful drinking restrictions on availability and the causes of inequalities in health

the demand for alcohol in the uk a comment in a recent article appearing in this journal mcguinness 3 explores the effects of income prices advertising and availability on the consumption of alcohol in the uk his conclusions regarding the effects of advertising on consumption have attracted considerable attention 1 5 from an economic viewpoint his findings regarding the relatively weak and uncertain influence of income on the growth of demand are equally notable the purpose of the present comment is to show that certain unusual features of mcguinness s analysis have important implications for his reported findings mcguinness s regression analysis is based on the first differences of 21 annual observations 1955 75 the general approach used is illustrated by the following representative equation

an empirical analysis of homosexual heterosexual male earnings differentials unmarried and unequal using data from the 1990 u s census pums 5 the authors present the first large scale study of wage differentials between heterosexual and homosexual men the homosexual sample consisting of gay men in unmarried partnered relationships are estimated to have earned 15 6 less than similarly qualified married heterosexual men and 2 4 less than similarly qualified unmarried partnered heterosexual men the authors interpret these two figures as upper and lower bound estimates of the differential between homosexual and heterosexual men the dual comparison enables the authors to disentangle the penalty to being unmarried from other determinants of the wage differential estimated at 14 1 this variable appears to be the main source of the wage gap

does it pay to participate in decision making survey evidence on land co management in jiangsu province china member participation in decision making is a critical part of resource co management however little is known about the welfare consequences of participation this paper analyzes the impact of cooperative member participation in decision making on their incomes using data from 364 members of china s land cooperative program we distinguish two levels of participation in decision making voting and obtaining financial information and use a bivariate probit model and propensity score matching to estimate their impact the results indicate that household head s age gender and education and family size wealth and political affiliation determine participation in decision making participation in either voting or obtaining financial information has a positive impact on cooperative members land income there is also a strong joint effect of voting and obtaining information with an increase in land income of 16 we conclude that broad participation can ensure more equitable access to land income for members

earnings differentials and market structure theoretical models suggest that market structure may influence the magnitude of earnings differentials and or discrimination observed in the marketplace empirical results with regard to wage differentials and labor force participation patterns have been mixed most wage differential studies have focused on males due to difficulty in obtaining reliable data for women and to the sample selection problem of women s labor force participation decisions this paper characterizes market structure by four categories regulated nonprofit government and nonregulated industries within these structural categories earnings differentials are examined for men and women adjusting for race occupational stratification and sample selection bias

on the decomposition of wage differentials the often used method for decomposing wage differentials into human capital and discrimination components is reformulated so that both t he disadvantage or cost discrimination it imposes on a black or minority wage earner and the advantage or benefit it bestows on a white or majority wage earner can be estimated copyright 1988 by mit press

factors influencing farmers adoption of energy based water pumps and impacts on crop productivity and household income in pakistan abstract the current study is based on comprehensive cross sectional data set collected through field survey from all the four major provinces of pakistan i e punjab sindh kpk and balochitan in total 950 farmers were interviewed this paper attempts to examine the factors that influence farmers choice of water pumps e g electric diesel solar photovoltaic pv or biogas and to assess the impact of these water pumps on crop productivity household income and poverty the paper uses the multivariate probit model and propensity score matching approach in order to achieve these objectives the empirical results indicate that educated younger and wealthier farmers are more likely to adopt alternate energy based water pumps for irrigation access to credit facilities and frequent hours of load shedding are key factors influencing a farmer s decision to adopt alternative energy based water pumps rather than relying on electricity alternative energy sources have positive and significant impacts on the productivity of wheat rice and maize crops and on household income the use of alternative energy sources for water pumping has resulted in the reduction of poverty in the range of 11 20 the study has important policy implications the current energy crisis in pakistan has adversely affected farming operations and in turn crop yield and the use of water pumps for irrigation based on alternative energy sources has increased crop productivity access to these renewable energy technologies for water pumping should be encouraged through subsidies and easy availability of credit facilities as the majority of farmers in pakistan are resource poor with small landholdings

electricity costs in irrigated agriculture a case study for an irrigation scheme in spain abstract electricity prices have risen sharply in spain in recent years to the point where they are now among the highest in the eu the scant competition between power utilities changes in the law and the tariff deficit accumulated debt in favour mainly of the electricity firms have driven up the cost of electricity affecting numerous other industries such as irrigated agriculture a sector that has significantly increased its electricity consumption as a result of modernization processes over the past twenty five years we examine these issues through a case study of an irrigation scheme in spain that provides irrigation water and infrastructure to 58 farming communities in north eastern spain and is highly representative of the ebro valley based on the results of direct estimations and simulations of different tariffs we propose the lowering of capacity based tariffs to reduce sector problems and cut energy costs especially for farmers we also raise the possibility of increasing self consumption a complementary measure for many farmers and for medium size firms

the impact of water conservation and intensification technologies empirical evidence for rice farmers in ghana this study employs the propensity score matching model to examine the impact of the adoption of water conservation and intensification technologies on farm output and income among small scale lowland rice farmers in the northern region of ghana the matching was conducted based on the mahalanobis distance combined with the propensity score balancing tests by checking the mean standardized absolute bias in the matched sample were conducted as well as a sensitivity analysis was conducted to check for hidden bias due to unobservable selection the empirical results show a positive and significant impact of the adoption of bunds technology on input demand as well as a positive but insignificant impact on output supply and net returns adopters of the dibbling technology were found to have higher output supply whereas no statistically significant difference was found between the incomes of adopters and nonadopters of dibbling seed method the results however reveal a positive and significant effect on output and net returns when the dibbling method is combined with intensified weeding the estimates were found to be relatively insensitive to hidden bias