Incomplete Demand System Research Articles

Combined fiscal policies to promote healthier diets: Effects on purchases and consumer welfare.

Taxes on unhealthy foods and sweetened beverages, as well as subsidies to healthy foods, have become increasingly popular strategies to curb obesity and related non-communicable diseases. The existing evidence on the welfare effects of such fiscal policies is mixed and almost uniquely focused on tax schemes. Using the 2016-2017 Chilean Household Budget Survey, we estimate a censored Exact Affine Stone Index (EASI) incomplete demand system and simulate changes in purchases, tax incidence, and consumer welfare of three different policy scenarios: (1) a 5 percentage point additional tax on sweetened beverages (currently taxed at 18%) and a new 18% tax on sweets and snacks, (2) a healthy subsidy by zero-rating fruits and vegetables from the current 19% value-added tax, and (3) a combined (tax plus subsidy) policy. Under full pass-through of these policies, the combined scheme captures the incentives to switch purchases from both single-policy alternatives, resulting in a net welfare gain and subsidy transfer for the average Chilean household. In terms of welfare, low-income households strictly benefit from a combined policy, while high-income households experience a small consumer welfare loss, resulting in re-distributional effects.

Predicting the Effects of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes on Food and Beverage Demand in a Large Demand System.

A censored Exact Affine Stone Index incomplete demand system is estimated for 23 packaged foods and beverages and a numéraire good. Instrumental variables are used to control for endogenous prices. A half-cent per ounce increase in sugar-sweetened beverage prices is predicted to reduce total calories from the 23 foods and beverages but increase sodium and fat intakes as a result of product substitution. The predicted decline in calories is larger for low-income households than for high-income households, although welfare loss is also higher for low-income households. Neglecting price endogeneity or estimating a conditional demand model significantly overestimates the calorie reduction.

Accommodating multiple constraints in the multiple discrete–continuous extreme value (MDCEV) choice model

Multiple-discrete continuous choice models formulated and applied in recent years consider a single linear resource constraint, which, when combined with consumer preferences, determines the optimal consumption point. However, in reality, consumers face multiple resource constraints such as those associated with time, money, and capacity. Ignoring such multiple constraints and instead using a single constraint can, and in general will, lead to poor data fit and inconsistent preference estimation, which can then have a serious negative downstream effect on forecasting and welfare/policy analysis.In this paper, we extend the multiple-discrete continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model to accommodate multiple constraints. The formulation uses a flexible and general utility function form, and is applicable to the case of complete demand systems as well as incomplete demand systems. The proposed MC-MDCEV model is applied to time-use decisions, where individuals are assumed to maximize their utility from time-use in one or more activities subject to monetary and time availability constraints. The sample for the empirical exercise is generated by combining time-use information from the 2008 American Time Use Survey and expenditure records from the 2008 US Consumer Expenditure Survey. The estimation results show that preferences can get severely mis-estimated, and the data fit can degrade substantially, when only a subset of active resource constraints is used.

Household food demand by income category: evidence from household survey data in an urban chinese province

Price and income elasticities are estimated for ten major food groups across low-, medium-, and high-income classes, using the 2004 China urban household survey data for Jiangsu province. Demand parameters are estimated using an incomplete demand system (the LinQuad model). Results of this study show that for the majority of the studied food categories, the demand for the low-income group is found to be more income and own-price elastic; while the demand for the high-income group is found to be less income and own-price elastic. Therefore, the null hypothesis of constant price and income elasticities of demand is rejected in this study. [EconLit citations: D120, R220, Q180]. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Incomplete Demand Systems, Corner Solutions, and Welfare Measurement

This paper demonstrates how corner solutions raise difficulties for the specification, estimation, and use of incomplete demand systems for welfare measurement with disaggregate consumption data, as is common in the outdoor recreation literature. A simple analytical model of consumer behavior is used to elucidate the potential biases for welfare measurement arising from modeling the demand for M goods as a function of M + N prices (N > 1) and income when individuals do not consume all goods in strictly positive quantities. Results from a Monte Carlo experiment suggest that these biases can be substantial for large-scale policy shocks when prices are highly correlated.

On the Measurement of Welfare for Market and Nonmarket Goods: A Numerical Approach

AbstractExtending Vartia's (1983) framework, the paper presents a simple numerical approach to the measurement of welfare for market and nonmarket goods on the basis of an incomplete (mixed) demand system. The method allows the determination of exact welfare measures. It provides a flexible and well‐founded alternative to ad hoc methods based on consumer surplus.

Estimation of Consumer Welfare Change from the Revision of Age Criterion for BSE Testing: Hypothetical Revealed Preference Method Using Monitoring Survey Data

The subject of this paper is to estimate consumers' welfare loss when the BSE testing age criterion for cattle is revised from all months to older than 21 months, by analyzing the change in meat demand due to this revision. However this analysis is different from ordinary revealed preference methods in that the demand data after this policy change are stated, while the data before this change are revealed as usual. This is because this paper focuses on a policy change which is not substantially executed yet. Using this demand data I estimated the generalized corner solution model of Phaneuf et al. (2000) for an incomplete demand system model. When I simulated each monitor's welfare loss based on the model estimation result, the expected compensating variation per household per month was 214 yen at the sample mean and 55 yen at the sample median.

Utility theoretic semi-logarithmic incomplete demand systems in a natural experiment: Forest fire impacts on recreational values and use

This study develops a utility theoretic demand model for an arbitrary number of goods that handles correlation between goods and over time. The bivariate compound Poisson estimator is applied to a semi-logarithmic incomplete demand system to estimate the demand for wilderness recreation and the associated welfare measures both prior to and post a 40,000 acre wilderness fire in Washington. Forest fires can simultaneously affect the environmental qualities of many recreational sites; this highlights the need for a utility theoretic demand system approach for modeling consumer behavior that handles the dynamic behavioral and statistical interdependencies over goods and time. Results suggest an increase in consumer welfare per trip post fire, after an initial period of low values, relative to before the fire.

India Edible Oil Consumption: A Censored Incomplete Demand Approach

A Censored Incomplete Demand System is applied to household expenditures for edible oil in India. The results show that edible peanut oil is still a luxury good in India, whereas expenditure elasticities for other edible oils are relatively low. The food habit, location, education of household heads, and other demographic variables have significant effects on the choice of edible oils.

Alternative Models of Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Site Demand

A controversial recreation activity is off-highway vehicle use. Off-highway vehicle use is controversial because it is incompatible with most other activities and is extremely hard on natural eco-systems. This study estimates utility theoretic incomplete demand systems for four off-highway vehicle sites. Since two sets of restrictions are equally consistent with utility theory both are imposed and the best fitting restrictions are identified using Voung’s non-nested testing scheme. The demand system is modeled using both Poisson and negative binomial II distributions. Data are provided by a survey conducted at four recreational off-highway vehicle (OHV) sites in western North Carolina.

U.S. Demand for Food and Nutrition in the 20th Century

A great deal of research on farm and food policy and consumer choice focuses on the link between food consumption and nutrition. This paper presents and applies a new method to analyze the demand for food and nutrients, and consumer welfare. The foundation for this method is the recent extension of the Gorman class of exactly aggregable demand models to incomplete demand systems. The purposes of this approach are to derive and implement coherent, flexible empirical models of food and nutrient demand, to estimate the model parameters consistently with aggregate data, and to make inferences on the impacts of farm and food policy changes on food and nutrient demand and consumer welfare of those policies. We apply this framework to annual per capita U.S. demand for food and nutrients 1919–-2000, excluding 1942-1946 to account for World War II. The empirical model is an incomplete system of Gorman Engel curves that is nonlinear in income. This class of demand models generates theoretically consistent, exactly aggregable systems of demand equations for which only a small number of summary statistics for the distribution of income are required to estimate the model’s parameters consistently using aggregate data. This model is estimated with 0° homogeneity, monotonicity, symmetry, and a negative semidefinite Slutsky matrix imposed globally, so that the results can be used directly for economic analyses. A complete time series of price and income elasticities of food and nutrient demand are obtained for the sample period.

The Effects of a Fat Tax on Dairy Products

We apply an incomplete demand system to supermarket scanner data to estimate the effects of a fat tax on dairy products for different demographic groups. We find own-price elasticities of demand are relatively inelastic and vary little across groups. A fat tax may be an effective means to raise revenue, but will not result in a significant reduction in fat consumption. The welfare effects associated with a fat tax are large and vary greatly across demographic groups. These fat taxes are regressive in nature, as the elderly and poor suffer greater welfare losses.

Integrability of the linear approximate almost ideal demand system

Integrability of the linear approximate almost ideal demand system (AIDS) is solved, including closed form solutions for the expenditure function, and generating a new method to nest the rank and functional form of a quadratic price independent generalized linear incomplete demand system (QPIGL-IDS).

Calibration of incomplete demand systems in quantitative analysis

An easily implemented and flexible calibration technique for partial demand systems is introduced, combining recent developments in incomplete demand systems and a set of restrictions conditioned on the available elasticity estimates. The technique accommodates various degrees of knowledge on cross-price elasticities, satisfies curvature restrictions, and allows the recovery of an exact welfare measure for policy analysis. The technique is illustrated with a partial demand system for food consumption in Korea for different states of knowledge on cross-price effects. The consumer welfare impact of food and agricultural trade liberalization is measured.

A Two-Constraint Almost Ideal Demand Model of Recreation and Donations

An incomplete demand system is developed for recreation and donation choices, subject to both money and time constraints. The model results in a three-good system, with an endogenous marginal value of time for estimation. The model is implemented by adapting Deaton and Muellbauer's locally flexible almost ideal demand system to a two-constraint recreation model of trips and donations of California whale watchers. Exact welfare measures are calculated for changes in costs, as well as for whale population changes. Results indicate a use and a nonuse component of overall willingness to pay for increases in environmental quality.

Urban Demand for Edible Oils and Fats in China: Evidence from Household Survey Data

Using urban household-level survey data from 1992 to 1998, we provide estimates of final demand for edible vegetable oils and animal fats in three regions of China based on an incomplete demand system. For each region, the demand for the major staple oil is price inelastic. The aggregate demand for nonstaple and condiment oils is more responsive to price changes and is elastic in some cases. All edible oils have positive income elasticity, but smaller than one. The share of animal fat in total fat and oil consumption is decreasing with rising income. Older and smaller households exhibit larger per-capita consumption of oils and fats. Exact measures of urban consumer welfare losses associated with trade restrictions on vegetable oil imports indicate that these urban consumers suffer a significant surplus loss as high as $679.19 million in 1998 U.S. dollars. J. Comp. Econ., December 2002, 30(4), pp. 732–753. Department of Economics and Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1070; and Institut National de Recherche Agronomique Paris-grignon 75231 Paris, France. © 2002 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: Q18, D12, Q17, O18.

A Complete Characterization of the Linear, Log-Linear, and Semi-Log Incomplete Demand System Models

This study extends LaFranceÂ’'s (1985, 1986, 1990) previous research by deriving the necessary parameter restrictions for two additional classes of incomplete demand system models to be integrable. In contrast to LaFrance'Â’s earlier work, this analysis considers models that treat expenditures and expenditure shares as the dependent variables in the specified incomplete demand systems. With environmental economists increasingly turning to demand system approaches to value changes in environmental quality, these new results significantly expand the menu of empirical specifications which can be used to fit a given data set. Moreover, the alternative specifications considered in this study, in combination with LaFrance'Â’s original work, represent a complete characterization of the linear, log-linear, and semi-log incomplete demand system models.

Evaluation of Nonmarket Goods: Recovering Unconditional Preferences

AbstractA new approach is proposed for the evaluation of nonmarket goods, starting from a complete or incomplete (conditional) demand system for market goods which is observable and depends on nonmarket goods. This information is not sufficient to recover the underlying preference ordering of the representative consumer. The central idea is to employ additional marginal willingness to pay functions for the nonmarket goods. Since they can be estimated either together with the demand system or in a separate step they are less arbitrary than the assumptions or hypotheses usually made. If the entire system is (weakly) integrable the underlying ordering and appropriate welfare measures can be derived. In this article I investigate the relationship between conditional and unconditional demand systems, present sufficient conditions for (weak) integrability, and demonstrate the practicability of the procedure proposed by means of three examples.

Weak Separability in Applied Welfare Analysis

The focus of this paper is the impact on welfare measurement of a common assumption in applied demand analysis, weak separability. A standard empirical practice is to estimate conditional demand models for a set of goods which are assumed to be weakly separable from all other goods with expenditure as a right-hand-side variable, tacitly assuming that expenditure is predetermined (Alston and Chalfant 1987, 1991; Alston, Carter, Green, and Pick; Blackorby, Boyce, and Russell; Blisard and Blaylock; Brown and Heien; Cashin; Choi and Sosin; Clements and E. Selvanathan; Clements and S. Selvana-than; Deaton 1975; Goddard and Amuah; Gould, Cox, and Perali 1990, 1991; Heien; Heien and Pompelli 1988, 1989; Murray; Safyurtlu, John-son, and Hassan; Theil 1976, 1980; Van Ko-oten; Yen and Chern). Once estimated, such separable demand models often are used to cal-culate exact welfare measures, or changes in the true cost of living index, of the economic effects on consumers due to changes in the prices of the goods under study (Heien; Heien and Pom-pelli 1989; Van Kooten; Blisard and Blaylock). This practice is shown here to produce biased results. There are two sources of the bias and both can be traced to the inappropriate treatment of expenditure as predetermined. In an empiri-cal application to the U.S. dairy program, a comparison of estimates from an incomplete demand system specification versus a weakly separable specification suggests a negative bias of around 17% of the compensating variation due to eliminating price discrimination in federal milk marketing orders in 1990. Results from a Monte Carlo simulation suggest that the downward bias is closer to 40%. I first present the analysis of weak separability, then the empirical application, and a summary and conclusions. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Further results on willingness to pay for nonmarket goods

Some implications of substitution relationships between private and public goods for measuring the value of changes in nonmarket goods such as environmental quality are explored. If a market good is (Hicks-) neutral to quality for some price vector, the total value of discrete changes in quality, consisting of both use and nonuse value, can be measured from empirical demand coefficients. A plausible motivation for neutrality is developed in the contexts of specifying incomplete demand systems for weak complements to quality and measuring nonuse value when the consumption of weak complements is (held at) zero. Previous results on bounding marginal willingness to pay for nonmarket goods are also strengthened.