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Estimating Costs of Children from Micro-Unit Records: A New Procedure Applied to Australian Data

Author

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  • Griffiths, W.E.
  • Valenzuela, R.

Abstract

Measuring the costs of children is of immense practical importance in a range of economic and social policy areas. In this paper, we introduce a new econometric procedure that improves on existing methods for obtaining estimates of such costs from a demand system. We develop, using an extended linear expenditure system, an iterative maximum likelihood estimator that overcomes possible estimation problems that arise from the 2-step estimation procedures employed by earlier authors. We also allow for a more general assumption about the equation “errors”, that of non-zero correlation between the errors for different commodities in the same household. Another important contribution is the development of an estimation procedure for sets of seemingly unrelated regressions where the different sets of equations are linked by some common parameters. The proposed procedure is applied to the 1988-89 and 1993-94 Australian Household Expenditure Surveys and results obtained update estimates of both the commodity-specific and general scales previously obtained for Australia.

Suggested Citation

  • Griffiths, W.E. & Valenzuela, R., 2001. "Estimating Costs of Children from Micro-Unit Records: A New Procedure Applied to Australian Data," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 795, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:795
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    File URL: http://www.economics.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/wpapers-00-01/795.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1986. "On Measuring Child Costs: With Applications to Poor Countries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 720-744, August.
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    7. Srikanta Chatterjee & Claudio Michelini & Ranjan Ray, 1994. "Expenditure Patterns and Aggregate Consumer Behaviour: Some Experiments with Australian and New Zealand Data," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 70(210), pages 278-291, September.
    8. Blundell,R. W. & Preston,Ian & Walker,Ian (ed.), 1994. "The Measurement of Household Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521451956, October.
    9. Ma. Rebecca J. Valenzuela, 1996. "Engel Scales for Australia, the Philippines and Thailand: A Comparative Analysis," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 29(2), pages 189-198, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. W.E. Griffiths & Ma. Rebecca Valenzuela, 2004. "Gibbs Samplers for a Set of Seemingly Unrelated Regressions," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 912, The University of Melbourne.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    CHILDREN ; COSTS ; DEMAND ; ECONOMETRICS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation

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