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 price...

This paper explores determinants of church attendance and the formation of 'religious human capital' in Germany within a Becker-style allocation-of-time framework. The analysis is based on data derived from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Taking advantage of the longitudinal structure...

We evaluate the impact of increased income uncertainty and financial liberalization in the US on consumption volatility and household welfare. We estimate Euler equations and measure the volatility of unpredictable changes in consumption as the squared Euler equation residuals. We directly...

The welfare implications of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) have garnered considerable attention and are complicated since the consumer delegates some decision-making authority to the physician, who is exposed to advertising as well. In this paper, I develop and estimate a structural model...

A set of newly added questions in the 2011 to 2014 Bank of England/NMG Consulting Survey reveals that British households are estimated to change their consumption by significantly more in reaction to temporary and unanticipated falls in income than to rises of the same size. Household balance...

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of demand in the German automobile industry. Our primary goal is to refine the existing literature on that topic by exploring the impact of uniqueness seeking behaviour of individuals on the demand schedule. Using a dataset on the segment of...

We present an IP-based nonparametric (revealed preference) testing procedure for rational consumption behavior in terms of general collective models, which include consumption externalities and public consumption. An empirical application to data drawn from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring...

Retailers typically sell many different products from the same manufacturer at the same price. I consider retailer-based explanations for this uniform pricing puzzle, estimating the counterfactual profits that would be lost by a retailer switching from a non-uniform to a uniform pricing regime...

The overconsumption of sugar is a significant problem in many jurisdictions, and one possible method to remedy this problem is the taxation of sugarsweetened beverages (SSBs). To be able to implement an optimal tax, it is important to know the preferences and price sensitivity of consumers. This...