Retirement policies often seek to set minimum pensions at levels that enable single and married pensioners to have the same standard of living. The existing literature on consumer equivalence scales provides little assistance in reaching this policy objective, as the estimated scales are both imprecise and reliant upon strong and opaque assumptions. This paper proposes an alternative modelling ...

We conduct a systematic empirical study of cross-sectional inequality in the United States, integrating data from the Current Population Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and the Survey of Consumer Finances. In order to understand how different dimensions of inequality are related via choices, markets, and institutions, we follow the mapping suggested ...

It is often alleged that high auction prices inhibit build-out. We investigate this claim under the extreme case of budget-constrained bidders. Low prices maximize overall the gains from trade. If there are n licenses, the price where the budget constraint just binds maximizes consumer surplus if the elasticity of demand is less than one plus 1/n. If demand is elastic, auctions maximize consume...

Many consumer choice situations are characterized by the simultaneous demand for multiple alternatives that are imperfect substitutes for one another, along with a continuous quantity dimension for each chosen alternative. To model such multiple discrete-continuous choices, most multiple discrete-continuous models in the literature use an additively-separable utility function, with the assumpti...

Although the disaggregation of consumers is crucial in understanding the fragmented markets that are dominant in many developed countries, it is not always straightforward to carry out such disaggregation within conventional retail modelling frameworks due to the limitations of data. In particular, consumer grouping based on sampled data is not assured to link with the other statistics that are...

This paper compares Bertrand and Cournot equilibria in a differentiated duopoly with substitute goods and product R&D. I find that R&D expenditure, prices and firms’ net profits are always higher under quantity competition than under price competition. Furthermore, output, consumer surplus and total welfare are higher in the Bertrand equilibrium than in the Cournot equilibrium if either R&D spi...

Digital technologies have transformed the nature of production and the types of goods and services consumed in modern economies. Yet our measurement framework for economic growth has not fundamentally changed since the 1930s. In principle, a better approach is now feasible. Specifically, changes in consumer surplus (compensating expenditure) are superior to changes in GDP as a measure of change...

Consumer borrowing is a large and growing part of the American financial landscape, amounting to over $1.5 trillion in 2000, or 15 percent of GDP. This credit helps households improve the timing of consumption expenditure, allowing consumers to purchase goods and services when they are needed. Still, many households report being credit constrained, with requests for credit rejected or discourag...

Ice cream has been manufactured commercially in the United States since the middle of the 19th century. Ice cream and frozen dessert products comprise an important and relatively stable component of the United States dairy industry. As with many other dairy products, ice cream is differentiated in several dimensions. A censored translog demand system model was employed to analyze purchases of 3...