This paper uses detailed diary information from the British Family Expenditure Survey (FES) to investigate the expenditure patterns of school-age children. We estimate a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, and find that, whilst most commodities are normal goods, sweets and toys are luxury...

This paper examines the extent to which consumption in Russian households responds to exogenous income shocks. During the time period studied in this paper (1994 – 1998), Russia experienced two major economic crises. Both featured extreme movements in the real ruble-dollar exchange rate. The...

This paper examines the relationship between product demand and the pattern of rising skill premia and rising employment of skilled workers in the US and the UK since the 1980s. If more skilled workers demand more skill-intensive goods, then an increase in relative skill supply will also induce...

The extension of subsidized child care is currently on top of the political agenda in Germany. In this paper the excess demand for subsidized child care slots is estimated using a partial observability model in the style of Abowd and Farber (1982). The results show that more than 50 percent of...

One cornerstone of current attempts to reform the German public health care system by introducing private insurance schemes is the assumption that economic incentives play an important role in individual decision-making about using medical help. This hypothesis is examined for the case of demand...

This paper presents a life cycle model for the demand for health, and derives empirical specifications that distinguish between permanent and transitory wage responses. Using panel data, we estimate dynamic health and health input demand equations. We find evidence of negative transitory wage...

In Germany, employees are generally obliged to participate in the public health insurance system, where coverage is universal, co-payments and deductibles are moderate, and premia are based on income. However, they may buy private insurance instead if their income exceeds the compulsory...

Although urban China has experienced a rapid income growth over the last twenty years, nutrition intake for the low income group declined in the 1990s. Does this imply a zero or negative income elasticity for the low income group? This paper examines this issue using large representative sample...

Microeconomic theory predicts that under certain regularity conditions higher idiosyncratic risk increases the propensity to insure against independent marketable risks. We apply these predictions to the specific case of labor income risk and car insurance using data from the UK. The main...

The increasing use of demand-side management as a tool to reliably meet electricity demand at peak time has stimulated interest among researchers, consumers and producer organizations, managers, regulators and policymakers, This research reviews the growing literature on models used to study...