This article investigates a number of empirical regularities in the South African consumption patterns. The data support the following empirical regularities: (1) variability in consumption systematically exceeds the variability in prices; (2) law of demand; (3) income flexibility is about -0.5;...

Stigler and Becker (1977) argue that tastes neither change capriciously nor differ importantly between people; it is differences in prices and incomes that determine differences in behaviour. In this paper we analyse the alcohol consumption patterns of drinkers from 8 industrialized countries. We...

The analysis of consumer demand is one of the major successes of economics as it represents the near perfect marriage of theory and econometrics. This paper reviews, distills and systematises some of the major empirical findings on consumption patterns, concentrating in particular on the more...

During the 1970s and 1980s, the external debt levels of poor countries rose to a level constituting a ‘debt crisis.’ The main source of the supply of external debt was the surplus revenue generated by the OPEC through significant increases in the price of oil during the 1970s. Unfortunately,...

In many developing countries, remittance payments from migrant workers are increasingly becoming a significant source of export income. This article investigates the causal link between remittances and economic growth in three countries, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, by employing the Granger...

Purpose – There has been growing interest in recent years in modelling various poverty-related issues. However, there have not been many attempts at empirical estimation of best-fit income distribution functions with an objective of subsequent use in poverty focused models. The purpose of this...

This paper investigates the causal link between foreign direct investment and tourism in India by employing the Granger causality test under a VAR framework. A one-way causality link is found from foreign direct investment to tourism in India. This evidence once again adds to the need for...

In this paper is presented an analysis of the consumption patterns of beer, wine and spirits for Australia using data for the period 1955/56-1985/86. The validity of the demand theory hypotheses demand homogeneity and Slutsky symmetry has been tested using recently developed distribution•...

A number of articles have appeared in the literature analysing the factors that influence international tourism. This paper identifies the factors that affect tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka and the impact of the various disturbances due to the Tamils independence war (which commenced in 1983) and...

This paper investigates the question of additive structure of the utility function using the data for nine broad commodity groups from 45 countries. Further evidence is presented in support of the preference independent utility structure.