This paper estimates tenure choice and housing demand equations in Italy, using cross-section data from the Bank of Italy 1991 Survey. The data include information on housing characteristics that is used to calculate hedonic price indexes for the Italian housing market. Empirical literature in...

Estimates of participation or expenditure elasticities depend upon the assumptions made regarding the observation of zero expenditure at the household level. This research examines two single-hurdle models across two commodities for which nearly two-thirds of the observations are zero. The...

This paper generalizes the standard habit formation model to an environment in which agents form habits over individual varieties of goods as opposed to over a composite consumption good. We refer to this preference specification as `deep habit formation'. Under deep habits, the demand function...

In this paper, I survey the previous literature on the saving behavior of the aged in Japan and then present some survey data on the saving behavior of the aged in Japan that became available recently. To summarize the main findings of this paper, all previous studies as well as the newly...

In early 2003, France actively tried to thwart the plans of the Bush administration to build international support for a war to depose Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. In response, calls in the United States for a boycott of French products, wine in particular, rebounded through all forms of media....

This paper considers several alternative explanations for the fact that households with higher levels of lifetime income ( the rich') have higher lifetime saving rates (Dynan, Skinner, and Zeldes (1996); Lillard and Karoly (1997)). The paper argues that the saving behavior of the richest...

Product diversity pervades every modern marketplace, and economists have devoted substantial attention to firms' decisions about the supply of variety. This study looks at the consumer's side by discussing the demand for variety. Using the framework of the home-production model, we trace...

A dynamic model of the demographic structure of Japan is summarized. It is capable of tracing the dynamic development of the Japanese population, including the distribution of families by age, sex, and marital status of the head, as well as by the number and age of children and other dependents....