IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/epolit/v37y2020i3d10.1007_s40888-019-00154-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A general expenditure system for estimation of consumer demand functions

Author

Listed:
  • Simona Bigerna

    (University of Perugia)

  • Carlo Andrea Bollino

    (University of Perugia)

  • Maria Chiara D’Errico

    (University of Perugia)

Abstract

The class of flexible functional forms for the utility and cost function has been characterized by the pioneering work of Gorman (Some Engel curves. In: Deaton A (ed) Essays in the theory and measurement of consumer behaviour. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1981), known as the Gorman polar form. Despite several decades have elapsed, the economic literature has not found the most general functional form that satisfies Gorman’s theorem. This note provides a new general theoretical and parametric formulation of demand functions, labeled general expenditure system (GES), satisfying the Gorman requirement that the Engel curve cannot exceed a polynomial of third degree in expenditure. Estimates show that the GES is a significant generalization of previous popular flexible functions.

Suggested Citation

  • Simona Bigerna & Carlo Andrea Bollino & Maria Chiara D’Errico, 2020. "A general expenditure system for estimation of consumer demand functions," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 1071-1088, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:epolit:v:37:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s40888-019-00154-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s40888-019-00154-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40888-019-00154-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40888-019-00154-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. LaFrance, Jeffrey T., 2008. "The structure of US food demand," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 336-349, December.
    2. Kapetanios, George & Shin, Yongcheol & Snell, Andy, 2003. "Testing for a unit root in the nonlinear STAR framework," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 359-379, February.
    3. Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1980. "Comparison of the Quadratic Expenditure System and Translog Demand Systems with Alternative Specifications of Demographic Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 595-612, April.
    4. Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terrence J, 1969. "Estimation of the Linear Expenditure System," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(4), pages 611-628, October.
    5. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1975. "Transcendental Logarithmic Utility Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 367-383, June.
    6. Arthur Lewbel & Krishna Pendakur, 2009. "Tricks with Hicks: The EASI Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 827-863, June.
    7. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Consumer preferences and demand systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 210-224, December.
    8. Tarek Atalla & Simona Bigerna & Carlo Andrea Bollino, 2018. "Energy demand elasticities and weather worldwide," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(1), pages 207-237, April.
    9. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Measuring Consumer Preferences and Estimating Demand Systems," MPRA Paper 12318, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Bollino, Carlo Andrea, 1987. "Gaids: a generalised version of the almost ideal demand system," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 199-202.
    11. Howe, Howard & Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1979. "Theory and Time Series Estimation of the Quadratic Expenditure System," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1231-1247, September.
    12. Schaffrin, André & Reibling, Nadine, 2015. "Household energy and climate mitigation policies: Investigating energy practices in the housing sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-10.
    13. Lewbel, Arthur, 1990. "Full Rank Demand Systems," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(2), pages 289-300, May.
    14. Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1978. "Estimation of Complete Demand Systems from Household Budget Data: The Linear and Quadratic Expenditure Systems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(3), pages 348-359, June.
    15. Jean-Paul Chavas & Michele Baggio, 2010. "On duality and the benefit function," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 99(2), pages 173-184, March.
    16. Russell, Thomas & Farris, Frank, 1998. "Integrability, Gorman systems, and the lie bracket structure of the real line," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 183-209, March.
    17. L. R. Klein & H. Rubin, 1947. "A Constant-Utility Index of the Cost of Living," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 15(2), pages 84-87.
    18. Lyssiotou, Panayiota, 2012. "Demographics and demand: Evaluation of alternative functional forms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 627-631.
    19. James Banks & Richard Blundell & Arthur Lewbel, 1997. "Quadratic Engel Curves And Consumer Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 527-539, November.
    20. Diewert, W E, 1974. "Functional Forms for Revenue and Factor Requirements Functions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 15(1), pages 119-130, February.
    21. Appelbaum, Elie, 1979. "On the Choice of Functional Forms," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 20(2), pages 449-458, June.
    22. Toshinobu Matsuda, 2006. "A Box-Cox Consumer Demand System Nesting The Almost Ideal Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(3), pages 937-949, August.
    23. Nocke, Volker & Schutz, Nicolas, 2017. "Quasi-linear integrability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 603-628.
    24. Deaton, Angus & Meullbauer, John, 1981. "Functional Forms for Labor Supply and Commodity Demands with and without Quantity Restrictions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1521-1532, November.
    25. Martina Menon & Federico Perali & Luca Piccoli, 2018. "Collective consumption: an application to the passive drinking effect," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 143-169, March.
    26. Berndt, Ernst R & Khaled, Mohammed S, 1979. "Parametric Productivity Measurement and Choice among Flexible Functional Forms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1220-1245, December.
    27. Krishna Pendakur & Stefan Sperlich, 2010. "Semiparametric estimation of consumer demand systems in real expenditure," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 420-457.
    28. John Muellbauer, 1975. "Aggregation, Income Distribution and Consumer Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(4), pages 525-543.
    29. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1980. "An Almost Ideal Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 312-326, June.
    30. Lewbel, Arthur, 1987. "Characterizing Some Gorman Engel Curves," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1451-1459, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. James W. Mjelde & Kannika Duangnate, 2023. "Overview of Committed Quantities in Commodity Demand Analysis with a Focus on Energy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-17, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. LaFrance, Jeffrey T., 2008. "The structure of US food demand," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 336-349, December.
    2. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Consumer preferences and demand systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 210-224, December.
    3. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Measuring Consumer Preferences and Estimating Demand Systems," MPRA Paper 12318, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Jeffrey LaFrance & Rulon Pope, 2008. "The Generalized Quadratic Expenditure System," Working Papers 2008-27, School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University.
    5. Chavas, Jean-Paul & Menon, Martina & Pagani, Elisa & Perali, Federico, 2018. "Collective household welfare and intra-household inequality," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    6. James W. Mjelde & Kannika Duangnate, 2023. "Overview of Committed Quantities in Commodity Demand Analysis with a Focus on Energy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-17, May.
    7. Douglas Fisher & Adrian R. Fleissig & Apostolos Serletis, 2006. "An Empirical Comparison of Flexible Demand System Functional Forms," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Money And The Economy, chapter 13, pages 247-277, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Biing‐Hwan Lin & Steven T. Yen & Diansheng Dong & David M. Smallwood, 2010. "Economic Incentives For Dietary Improvement Among Food Stamp Recipients," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(4), pages 524-536, October.
    9. Schulte, Isabella & Heindl, Peter, 2017. "Price and income elasticities of residential energy demand in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 512-528.
    10. Kannika Duangnate & James W. Mjelde, 2022. "The Role of Pre-Commitments and Engle Curves in Thailand’s Aggregate Energy Demand System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-16, February.
    11. Paris, Quirino & Caracciolo, Francesco, 2014. "Testing the adding up condition in demand systems," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182827, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. Tarek Atalla, Simona Bigerna, Carlo Andrea Bollino, and Rolando Fuentes, 2017. "Analyzing the Effects of Renewable Energy and Climate Conditions on Consumer Welfare," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(KAPSARC S).
    13. LaFrance, Jeffrey T. & Beatty, Timothy K. M. & Pope, Rulon D., 2004. "Building Gorman's Nest," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt2ws698td, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    14. Frank T. Denton & Dean C. Mountain, 2016. "Biases in consumer elasticities based on micro and aggregate data: an integrated framework and empirical evaluation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 531-560, March.
    15. Toshinobu Matsuda, 2006. "A trigonometric flexible consumer demand system," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(1), pages 145-162, February.
    16. Apostolos Serletis & Libo Xu, 2020. "Demand systems with heteroscedastic disturbances," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1913-1921, April.
    17. Rowland, Christopher S. & Mjelde, James W. & Dharmasena, Senarath, 2017. "Policy implications of considering pre-commitments in U.S. aggregate energy demand system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 406-413.
    18. Rulon D. Pope & Jeffrey T. LaFrance & Timothy K. M.Beatty, 2004. "Building Gorman's Nest," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 26, Econometric Society.
    19. Lyssiotou, Panayiota & Pashardes, Panos & Stengos, Thanasis, 2002. "Nesting quadratic logarithmic demand systems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 369-374, August.
    20. Jin, Man, 2018. "Measuring substitution in China's monetary-assets demand system," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 117-132.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Integrable demand functions; General expenditure system; Gorman polar form;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • C30 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:epolit:v:37:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s40888-019-00154-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.