We use English household-level survey data from 1996 to 2010 to explore whether economic market failures play a significant role in explaining the presence of energy efficiency measures (loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and full double glazing) in residential properties. There appears to...

Standard economic theory implies that the labelling of cash transfers or cash-equivalents (e.g. child benefits, food stamps) should have no effect on spending patterns. The empirical literature to date does not contradict this proposition. We study the UK Winter Fuel Payment (WFP), a cash...

Anti-smoking policies can in theory make smokers better off, by helping smokers with time-inconsistent preferences commit to giving up or reducing the amount they smoke. We use almost 20 years of British individual-level panel data to explore the impact on self-reported psychological well-being...

We investigate life cycle patterns of demand for services from household durables using UK panel data. We take careful account of prices, demographics, labour supply and health. Demand for consumer electronics rises with age, while the demand for household appliances is flat. These findings...

Reforms of indirect taxes, such as the recent changes in rates of value added tax (VAT) in the Czech Republic, change prices of products and services to which households can respond by adjusting their expenditures. I estimate the behavioural response of consumers to price changes in the Czech...

This paper compares the goods and characteristics models of the consumer within a non-parametric revealed preference framework. Of primary interest is to make a comparison on the basis of predictive success that takes into account dimension reduction. This allows us to nonparametrically identify...

This paper presents a nonparametric analysis of a common class of intertemporal models of consumer choice that relax consumption independence. Within this class and in the absence of any functional form restrictions on instantaneous preferences, we compare the revealed preference conditions for...

This paper examines trends in household consumption and saving behaviour in each of the last three recessions in the UK. We identify several dimensions along which the most recent recession (the so-called 'Great Recession') has been different from those that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s....

Prices of real and financial assets fell substantially in the UK during 2008-09. The fourth wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) was in the field throughout this 'financial crisis'. We use these data and earlier ELSA waves first to document the effect of the crisis on the...

This study investigates the pattern of poverty in Italy in the 1980s and the 1990s, by means of both eonsumption and ineome measures, so as to separate the permanent and temporary eomponents. The empirie al analysis we eonduet addresses not only eeonomie issues, but also those of survey...