IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tky/fseres/2010cf712.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bayesian Estimation of Demand Functions under Block-Rate Pricing

Author

Listed:
  • Koji, Miyawaki

    (National Institute for Environmental Studies)

  • Yasuhiro Omori

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)

  • Akira Hibiki

    (National Institute for Environmental Studies)

Abstract

This article proposes a Bayesian estimation of demand functions under block-rate pricing by focusing on increasing block-rate pricing. This is the first study that explicitly considers the separability condition which has been ignored in previous literature. Under this pricing structure, the price changes when consumption exceeds a certain threshold and the consumer faces a utility maximization problem subject to a piecewise-linear budget constraint. Solving this maximization problem leads to a statistical model in which model parameters are strongly restricted by the separability condition. In this article, by taking a hierarchical Bayesian approach, we implement a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation to properly estimate the demand function. We find, however, that the convergence of the distribution of simulated samples to the posterior distribution is slow, requiring an additional scale transformation step for parameters to the Gibbs sampler. These proposed methods are then applied to estimate the Japanese residential water demand function.

Suggested Citation

  • Koji, Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2010. "Bayesian Estimation of Demand Functions under Block-Rate Pricing," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-712, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2010cf712
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2010/2010cf712.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chib, Siddhartha, 2001. "Markov chain Monte Carlo methods: computation and inference," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 57, pages 3569-3649, Elsevier.
    2. Hanemann, W Michael, 1984. "Discrete-Continuous Models of Consumer Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 541-561, May.
    3. Herriges, Joseph A & King, Kathleen Kuester, 1994. "Residential Demand for Electricity under Inverted Block Rates: Evidence from a Controlled Experiment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(4), pages 419-430, October.
    4. Herriges, Joseph A. & King, K.A., 1994. "Residential Demand for Electricity Under Block Rate Structures: Evidence from a Controlled Experiment," Staff General Research Papers Archive 1498, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Chib, Siddhartha & Greenberg, Edward, 1996. "Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulation Methods in Econometrics," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 409-431, August.
    6. Jasper M. Dalhuisen & Raymond J. G. M. Florax & JHenri L. F. de Groot & Peter Nijkamp, 2003. "Price and Income Elasticities of Residential Water Demand: A Meta-Analysis," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 79(2), pages 292-308.
    7. Olmstead, Sheila M. & Michael Hanemann, W. & Stavins, Robert N., 2007. "Water demand under alternative price structures," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 181-198, September.
    8. Hausman, Jerry A, 1985. "The Econometrics of Nonlinear Budget Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1255-1282, November.
    9. Burtless, Gary & Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "The Effect of Taxation on Labor Supply: Evaluating the Gary Negative Income Tax Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 1103-1130, December.
    10. Julie A. Hewitt & W. Michael Hanemann, 1995. "A Discrete/Continuous Choice Approach to Residential Water Demand under Block Rate Pricing," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 71(2), pages 173-192.
    11. Kunitomo, Naoto & Sato, Seisho, 1996. "Asymmetry in economic time series and the simultaneous switching autoregressive model," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 1-34, March.
    12. De Jong, G. C., 1990. "An indirect utility model of car ownership and private car use," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 971-985, July.
    13. Peter C. Reiss & Matthew W. White, 2005. "Household Electricity Demand, Revisited," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 853-883.
    14. Chib, Siddhartha, 1992. "Bayes inference in the Tobit censored regression model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 79-99.
    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. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2010. "Discrete/Continuous Choice Model of the Residential Gas Demand on the Nonconvex Budget Set," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-770, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    2. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2011. "Panel Data Analysis Of Japanese Residential Water Demand Using A Discrete/Continuous Choice Approach," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 365-386, September.
    3. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2018. "A discrete/continuous choice model on a nonconvex budget set," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 89-113, February.
    4. Kertous, Mourad & Zerzour, Sahad, 2015. "To pay or not to pay? Water bill and delay in payment in Bejaia (Algeria): A duration analysis," MPRA Paper 67801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Henrique Monteiro, 2010. "Residential Water Demand in Portugal: checking for efficiency-based justifications for increasing block tariffs," Working Papers Series 1 ercwp0110, ISCTE-IUL, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL).
    6. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori, 2007. "Duality-Based Analysis of Residential Gas Demand under Decreasing Block Rate Pricing," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-506, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.

    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. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2018. "A discrete/continuous choice model on a nonconvex budget set," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 89-113, February.
    2. Cristina Lopez-Mayan, 2014. "Microeconometric Analysis of Residential Water Demand," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(1), pages 137-166, September.
    3. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2010. "Discrete/Continuous Choice Model of the Residential Gas Demand on the Nonconvex Budget Set," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-770, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    4. Zhang, Zibin & Cai, Wenxin & Feng, Xiangzhao, 2017. "How do urban households in China respond to increasing block pricing in electricity? Evidence from a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 161-172.
    5. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2011. "Panel Data Analysis Of Japanese Residential Water Demand Using A Discrete/Continuous Choice Approach," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 365-386, September.
    6. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori, 2007. "Duality-Based Analysis of Residential Gas Demand under Decreasing Block Rate Pricing," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-506, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    7. Lin, Boqiang & Chen, Xing, 2018. "Is the implementation of the Increasing Block Electricity Prices policy really effective?--- Evidence based on the analysis of synthetic control method," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 734-750.
    8. Hancevic, Pedro Ignacio & Lopez-Aguilar, Javier Alejandro, 2019. "Energy efficiency programs in the context of increasing block tariffs: The case of residential electricity in Mexico," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 320-331.
    9. Reiss, Peter C. & White, Matthew W., 2002. "Household Electricity Demand, Revisited," Research Papers 1830, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    10. Mansur, Erin T. & Olmstead, Sheila M., 2012. "The value of scarce water: Measuring the inefficiency of municipal regulations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 332-346.
    11. Wang, Xiangrui & Lee, Jukwan & Yan, Jia & Thompson, Gary D., 2017. "Modeling Rational But Inattentive Consumer’s Residential Water Demand," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258555, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Olmstead, Sheila M. & Michael Hanemann, W. & Stavins, Robert N., 2007. "Water demand under alternative price structures," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 181-198, September.
    13. Kenneth A. Baerenklau & Kurt A. Schwabe & Ariel Dinar, 2014. "The Residential Water Demand Effect of Increasing Block Rate Water Budgets," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(4), pages 683-699.
    14. Aaron Strong & V. Kerry Smith, 2010. "Reconsidering the Economics of Demand Analysis with Kinked Budget Constraints," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(1), pages 173-190.
    15. David W. Carter & J. Walter Milon, 2005. "Price Knowledge in Household Demand for Utility Services," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(2).
    16. Milan Ščasný & Šarlota Smutná, 2021. "Estimation of price and income elasticity of residential water demand in the Czech Republic over three decades," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 580-608, June.
    17. Dalton, Christina M., 2014. "Estimating demand elasticities using nonlinear pricing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 178-191.
    18. Wichman, Casey, 2024. "Efficiency, Equity, and Cost-Recovery Trade-Offs in Municipal Water Pricing," RFF Working Paper Series 24-18, Resources for the Future.
    19. Baerenklau, Kenneth A. & Schwabe, Kurt & Dinar, Ariel, 2014. "Do Increasing Block Rate Water Budgets Reduce Residential Water Demand? A Case Study in Southern California," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170019, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Wang, Xiangrui & Lee, Jukwan & Yan, Jia & Thompson, Gary D., 2018. "Testing the behavior of rationally inattentive consumers in a residential water market," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 344-359.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tky:fseres:2010cf712. 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: CIRJE administrative office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ritokjp.html .

    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.