Using data spanning over four decades (1960-2000), this paper employs Engel's needsbased approach to analyzing household expenditure patterns to find evidence for the existence of a stable hierarchy of expenditure patterns at low levels of household income. Second, we investigate how rising...

We measure how different the shapes of Engel curves are across 59 commodity groups. The same analysis is carried out for their derivatives and variances. While Engel curves possess a relatively homogeneous shape, significantly more heterogeneity is present in derivatives and when particular...

Using UK household expenditure data spanning over four decades (1960–2000), this paper employs Engel’s needs-based approach to analyzing household expenditure patterns and finds evidence for the existence of a stable hierarchy of expenditure patterns at low levels of household income....

The tendency of sectoral demand to satiate has long been argued to be a key driver of the structural change in an economy (Pasinetti 1981; Saviotti 2001). This literature raises the question as to what extent cross-sectional patterns of household expenditure can be used to make inferences about how...

Using data spanning over four decades (1960-2000), this paper employs Engel's needsbased approach to analyzing household expenditure patterns to find evidence for the existence of a stable hierarchy of expenditure patterns at low levels of household income. Second, we investigate how rising...