This paper revisits Ernst Engel's (1857) original article in which he systematically in-vestigated the relationship between consumption expenditure and income. While he ismainly remembered today for the discovery of Engel's law, we highlight how Engel ad-dressed in a particular way the issue of...

Certain properties of Engel curves have been linked to the occurrence of structural changein the economy (Pasinetti 1981, Metcalfe et al. 2006, Saviotti 2001). From an empiricalperspective, however, very little has been done to examine (i) whether indeed satiation isa general property of Engel...

Economic growth tends to stimulate fundamental changes in consumption patterns as consumers who get rich tend to spread their spending more evenly across a wider variety of goods and services. Comparing cross sectional spending patterns across rich and poor countries, we investigate how this...

This paper revisits Ernst Engel's (1857) original article in which he systematically investigated the relationship between consumption expenditure and income. While he is mainly remembered today for the discovery of Engel's law, we highlight how Engel addressed in a particular way the issue of...

Certain properties of Engel curves have been linked to the occurrence of structural change in the economy (Pasinetti 1981, Metcalfe et al. 2006, Saviotti 2001). From an empirical perspective, however, very little has been done to examine (i) whether indeed satiation is a general property of...

We measure how different the shapes of Engel curves are across 59 commodity groups. The same analysis is carried out for their derivatives and variances. While Engel curves possess a relatively homogeneous shape, significantly more heterogeneity is present in derivatives and when particular...

Using data spanning over four decades (1960-2000), this paper employs Engel's needsbased approach to analyzing household expenditure patterns to find evidence for the existence of a stable hierarchy of expenditure patterns at low levels of household income. Second, we investigate how rising...

Summary The tendency of sectoral demand to satiate has long been argued to be a key driver of the structural change in an economy (Pasinetti 1981; Saviotti 2001). This literature raises the question as to what extent cross-sectional patterns of household expenditure can be used to make inferences...

Using UK household expenditure data spanning over four decades (1960–2000), this paper employs Engel’s needs-based approach to analyzing household expenditure patterns and finds evidence for the existence of a stable hierarchy of expenditure patterns at low levels of household income....

The tendency of sectoral demand to satiate has long been argued to be a key driver of the structural change in an economy (Pasinetti 1981; Saviotti 2001). This literature raises the question as to what extent cross-sectional patterns of household expenditure can be used to make inferences about how...