The Slutsky matrix function encodes all the information about local variations in demand with respect to small (Slutsky) compensated price changes. When the demand function is the result of utility maximization the Slutsky matrix is symmetric. However, symmetry does not imply rationality. Here,...

The classic Working-Leser household Engel curve is unpacked to reveal individual budget allocations across commodities as a function of both individual and household total spending. Two main findings emerge on calibrating our model to an unusual sub-household dataset for Senegal. First, for all...

Investment disparity in the education of persons with disabilities may be larger on the part of parents, in part resulting from predicted lower returns to the investment due to mistaken beliefs about their capabilities, or actual lower returns due to barriers in the labor market. Using a...

This paper provides a dual formulation of the optimal consumption problem with internal multiplicative habit formation. In this problem, the agent derives utility from the ratio of consumption to the internal habit component. Due to this multiplicative specification of the habit model, the...

In old age, consumption can fluctuate because of shocks to available resources and because health shocks affect utility from consumption. We find that even temporary drops in income and health are associated with drops in consumption and most of the effect of temporary drops in health on...

This paper examines the extent to which gains-from-trade predictions from commonly-used trade theories are consistent with observed household consumption decisions. Our approach is based on inference from household-level estimation of food Engel curves in the US and in a few other countries. For...

Consumers often face choice settings in which alternatives are discrete. Examples include choices between variants of differentiated products, modes of urban transportation, residential locations, etc. In this paper compensated price elasticities and a corresponding(aggregate) Slutsky equation...

We characterize optimal consumption policies in a recursive intertemporal utility framework with local substitution. We establish existence and uniqueness and a version of the Kuhn-Tucker theorem characterizing the optimal consumption plan. An explicit solution is provided for the case when the...

Using a unique data set of medium and large enterprises (MLEs), which covers four Russian regions and the three sectors manufacturing and mining, construction and trade and distribution, we estimate fixed effects specifications of static labor demand equations for the year 1997. The most...

This paper studies the infinite horizon optimal consumption with a path-dependent reference under the exponential utility. The performance is measured by the difference between the non-negative consumption rate and a fraction of the historical consumption maximum. The consumption running maximum...

We propose a new optimal consumption model in which the degree of addictiveness of habit formation is directly controlled through a constraint on admissible consumption. In particular, we assume that the individual is unwilling to consume at a rate below a certain proportion 0α≤1 of her...

We study the identification and estimation of preferences in hedonic discrete choice models of demand for differentiated products. In the hedonic discrete choice model, products are represented as a finite dimensional bundle of characteristics, and consumers maximize utility subject to a budget...

Economists routinely make functional form assumptions about consumer demand to obtain welfare estimates—often for convenience, tractability, or both. How sensitive are welfare estimates to these assumptions? In this paper, we answer this question by providing bounds on welfare that hold for...

I develop a technique useful for obtaining more precise estimates of demand and supply curves when constrained to market-level data. It augments the estimation routine with data on the average characteristics of consumers that purchase different products. I apply the technique to the automobile...

We provide new evidence from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Decennial Census of Housing that the expenditure share on housing is constant over time and across U.S. metropolitan areas (MSA). Consistent with this observation, we consider a basic model in which identical households with Cobb-Douglas...

The COVID-19 pandemic led to stark reductions in economic activity in India. We employ CMIE's Consumer Pyramids Household Survey to examine the timing, distribution, and mechanism of the impacts from this shock on income and consumption through December 2020. First, we estimate large and...

Food insecurity and malnutrition are still major challenges for large proportions of households in Sub-Saharan Africa. The empirical literature on food demand, however, suggests mixed evidence on the roles of income and other socio-economic attributes on food demand. This study analyzes the food...

A model is provided whereby a monopolist firm chooses to price its product at zero. This outcome is shown to be driven by the assumption of `free disposal' alongside selection markets (where prices impact on a firm's costs). Free disposal creates a mass point of consumers whose utility from the...

We present the optimal consumption and investment strategy for an investor,endowed with labor income, searching to maximize utility from consumption and terminalwealth when facing a binding capital constraint of a European (constraint on terminal wealth)or an American (constraint on the wealth...

The net accumulation of human capital through the cultivation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills and knowledge, is an important source of change in professional and personal people's life. Past work experience has a direct effect on wage levels and their growth; thus, it influences the...

We study an intertemporal consumption and portfolio choice problem under Knightian uncertainty in which agent's preferences exhibit local intertemporal substitution. We also allow for market frictions in the sense that the pricing functional is nonlinear. We prove existence and uniqueness of the...

The classic Working-Leser household Engel curve is unpacked to reveal individual budget allocations across commodities as a function of both individual and household total spending. Two main findings emerge on calibrating our model to an unusual sub-household dataset for Senegal. First, for all...

Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Rationality of choices made by individual consumer -- Chapter 3. Rationality of choices made by groups of consumers -- Chapter 4. Rationality of choices made by individual producers -- Chapter 5. Rationality of choices made by groups of producers by...

Economists routinely make functional form assumptions about consumer demand to obtain welfare estimates. How sensitive are welfare estimates to these assumptions? We answer this question by providing bounds on welfare that hold for families of demand curves commonly considered in different...

Chapter 1: Economics and the Equity Market: A Microeconomics Course Application -- Chapter 2: Liquidity, Trading, and Price Determination in Equity Markets: A Finance Course Application -- Chapter 3: Liquidity and the Impact of Information Shocks: A Macroeconomics Course Application -- Chapter...

As billions of people in the developing world seek to increase their living standards, their aspirations pose a challenge to global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The emerging middle class are buying and operating energy intensive durables ranging from vehicles to air conditioners to...

We investigate a model of deterministic stochastic choice for the standard con- sumer problem. We introduce the framework of statistical consumer theory where the individual maximizes their utility with respect to a distribution of bundles that is constrained by a statistic (e.g. mean...

We consider an optimal consumption/investment problem to maximize expected utility from consumption. In this market model, the investor is allowed to choose a portfolio which consists of one bond, one liquid risky asset (no transaction costs) and one illiquid risky asset (proportional...