Let me begin this essay with some propositions found in the preface to this study. “(A) dynamic of contradiction…stands at the heart of Marxist theory” (p. 8). And (quoting Engels) while “men make their own history…in that each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is...

Preliminaries -- and Overview -- Demand Theory Under Review -- Quantile Regression: A Robust Alternative to Least Squares -- Analyses of Data from BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys -- Description of Data Used from the Ongoing BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys -- Stability of U.S. Consumption...

Estimation of Food Stamp Program (FSP) effects has been complicated by self-selection and by a contradiction between observed spending patterns and the economic theory of consumer choice. We developed a modified version of the traditional theory, in which participant households may be partly...

Volume flexibility is an important but not very well understood concept that allows a firmto leverage its scarce resources for optimal utilization with upswings and downswings inbusiness. Our research using 3 different research methods suggests that the key problemsin developing a volume...

Using a unique enterprise-level data set, which covers the regions Moscow City, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk and Chuvashia and the three sectors manufacturing and mining, construction and trade and distribution, we estimate Russian labour demand equations for the year 1997. The most important...

The utility maximization problem of "ratchet investors" who do not tolerate any decline in their consumption rate is solved explicitly for all felicity functions in a Markovian framework which includes Brownian motion and Poisson processes as special cases. The optimal consumption plan turns out...

This paper applies revealed preference theory to the nonparametric statistical analysis of consumer demand. Knowledge of expansion paths is shown to improve the power of nonparametric tests of revealed preference. The tightest bounds on indifference surfaces and welfare measures are derived...

Modern consumer theories are built upon the premise of the forward looking behavior of households. While most of the empirical studies at micro level are based on Euler equation, there have been few to estimate the household consumption function and test the implication of forward looking...