Strong growth in disposable income has inflated consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. In this process consumer behavior has been changing. To explain the driving forces of this development, the paper introduces a theory of evolving consumer preferences that is molded in an...

Sharp nonparametric bounds are derived for Hicksian compensating and equivalent variations. These 'i-bounds' generalize earlier results of Blundell, Browning and Crawford (2008). We show that their e-bounds are sharp under the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference (WARP). They do not require...

A use-or-lose provision requires firms to employ a certain minimum fraction of their productive capacity. Variants have been used by regulators in the airline, natural gas transmission, and electric power industries, among others. The primary objective of these provisions is to limit capacity...

Over the last decades, research in behavioural economics has demonstrated that individual welfare (utility), as relevant for economic decision making, depends not only on absolut but also on distributional aspects. Moreover, evidence is gathering that something similar holds for aggregate...

This paper characterizes the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a symmetric, pure exchange economy with two goods and N agents with uniformly distributed preferences and identical endowments. Relaxing the auctioneer assumption, but maintaining a global price rule, sequentially random pairwise...

This paper develops nonparametric methods for welfare-analysis of economic changes in the common setting of multinomial choice. The results cover (a) simultaneous price-change of multiple alternatives, (b) introduction/elimination of an option, (c) changes in choice-characteristics, and (d)...

We simulate the welfare effects of the Carbon-Energy Tax introduced in Italy at the beginning of 1999 which asks for smooth increases, over a number of years, in the prices of most fossil fuels. The welfare effects have been calculated using True Cost of Living index numbers and their parameters...

We introduce a Bayesian instrumental variable procedure with spatial random effects that handles endogeneity, and spatial dependence with unobserved heterogeneity. We take into account the endogeneity through a system of simultaneous equations where a conditional correlation between the...

The complexity of the modern world imposes significant cognitive and material costs on consumers. This paper models decision costs to better describe and understand the effects of behavioural policy, and finds that, similar to traditional economic policy, behavioural policies can create welfare...

In this paper we develop an approach to measuring inequality and poverty that recognizes the fact that individuals within households may have both different preferences and differential access to resources. We argue that a measure based on estimates of the sharing rule is inadequate as an...