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In this article, we analyse the gas demand of Swiss households and provide an estimate of the own price elasticity. We use household-level panel data from 2010 to 2014 for 958 Swiss households whil...

The government's commitment to realize national food security through overcome food insecurity and malnutrition as the main program of the Ministry of Agriculture. This study aims to analyze differences in consumption of protein commodities based on two provincial categories and the effect of changes in prices and income on demand of protein commodities. The two provincial catagories are provinces which has protein consumption below Adequacy Rate of Protein (AKP), namely Jambi, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Maluku and provinces which has protein consumption above AKP, namely Jakarta, Jawa Barat, Jawa Timur. This study used the National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS) in March analyzed by using Linear Approximate-Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS). The results showed that consumption of fish and meat in provinces above AKP is higher then percapita consumption in provinces below AKP, while the others percapita consumption like poultry, egg, tempeh, and tofu is higher in provinces above AKP. Price and expenditure elasticity is more elastic in provinces above AKP then price and expenditure elasticity in provinces below AKP. Generally, the commodity's own price elasticity is inelastic in both categories of provinces except eggs. The value of egg elasticity is greater than 1 (elastic), either in provinces above AKP or in the provinces below AKP. Based on expenditure elasticity, all commodities are normal goods. Fish, poultry, and eggs are luxury goods in the province above the AKP, while only fish and eggs are luxury goods in the provinces below the AKP.

Objectives: The objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between price and sales volume of non-alcoholic sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), diet drinks, sweets and chocolates, including own and cross price elasticity to further quantify the potential impact of price. Methods: The study was based on retail scanner data for grocery sales from retail outlet chains in Denmark during the year 2008–2015. A fixed-effects model was used to estimate the association between price and sales volume, using own price and cross price elasticity. Results: Sales volume of all sugary products except for chocolates were significantly negatively associated with price. Own price elasticity varied from −0.3 to −0.4 for drinks and sweets indicating that a 10% increase in price would cause a reduction in sales by 3 or 4%. A 10% increase in price of carbonated SSBs would increase sales of diet drinks by 7%. Cross price elasticities for other products were not significant. Conclusions: The results of the present study demonstrated significant negative associations between changes in price and changes in the sale of SSBs, diet drinks and sweets.

Pricing is a basic strategic tool in hotel revenue management (RM). This study proposes a particular demand function model for resort hotels for measuring their own-price elasticities, along with the different seasonal demands, and across the booking horizons. The model is applied to the online transient demand for two hotels in Majorca – a well-known, mature mass tourism destination – in order to estimate and compare different elasticities, which could be used by RM departments to correctly manage prices in the short run and establish optimum pricing strategies (over the medium and long run). The results show that the two hotels display completely different own-price elasticities during high season, while during low season, demand is quite inelastic at both hotels; secondly, common price variations among seasons or hotels may sometimes be an erroneous pricing strategy, such as the common early booking strategy. The model is easily adaptable to different hotels.

A Linear Approximation Almost Ideal Demand System was used to provide more reliable and detailed information about competitive ability of the Egyptian oranges export in major markets: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands and United Kingdom. The model is estimated by iterated seemingly unrelated regression (ItSUR) estimators with adding up, homogeneity, and Slutsky symmetry conditions imposed. Significance level of estimated marginal shares, expenditure elasticities, signs of own price Slutsky parameters, and Cournot own price elasticities indicated that the model fit the data reasonably well. At the level of the average annual increase rate of the Egyptian orange exports to the studied four markets, the Egyptian orange exports have a distinguish place in all these markets, especially in the Russian and Saudi markets. Between 200-2016, this rate increased by 15.7, 8.4, 3.8 and 3.9 thousand tons in the Russian, Saudi, Netherlands and UK markets, respectively. The results of the research indicate that in case of increasing the total expenditure of oranges in the mentioned markets, the development of the marginal shares of the major four exporting sources is clearly in favor of the Egyptian exports in the Russian and Saudi markets. The high estimated expenditure elasticities of the imported oranges, 1.67 in Russia, 1.13 in Saudi Arabia, 1.08 in Netherlands and 0.71 in the UK, show that the Egyptian oranges are preferred by the customers of these four markets. The results indicate that increasing Orange expenditure by 10% will increase the demand for imports of Egyptian oranges by 10.7%, 11.3%, 11.8% and 7.1% in the studied markets, respectively. The results illustrate that the cournot own price elasticity of the imported Egyptian oranges in the Russian market is relatively high (-1.14), which means that the orange export to the Russian market is very sensitive to the price changes of its own. Other own price elasticities -0.69, -0.37 and -0.39 in the Saudi, Netherlands and UK markets, respectively, are moderate, indicating that there are other factors beside price influencing the preference of the customers of these three markets. The cross price elasticities in all four markets show that the Egyptian orange export are affected by price changes of other sources, however the major impact is due to the price changes of the South African Exports, the main competitor of the Egyptian orange export, especially in the Netherland market.

This study estimates the price elasticity of demand for Pacific bluefin tuna in Tsukiji Market by using an instrumental variables approach. Variability in catch by purse seine vessels and f...

To determine the own price elasticity of Mexican steel production, as well as to quantify the level of impact of the international price on the wholesale price in Mexico; In this work we estimate a simultaneous equations model with annual information from 1980 to 2017, integrated by 3 regression equations. In the short as in the long term, the steel production in Mexico responds inelastically (0.0425 and 0.2419%) before changes of 1% in the own price. The international price of steel is the wholesale price in Mexico at a level of 0.05, for each unit percentage change in the first.

Concerns about the growing prevalence of obesity worldwide have led researchers and policy makers to investigate the potential health impact of fiscal policies such as taxes on unhealthy foods. A common instrument used to measure the relationship between food prices and food consumption is the price elasticity of demand. Using meta-regression analysis we assessed how differences in methodological approaches to estimating demand affected food price elasticities. Most methodological differences had a statistically significant impact on elasticity estimates, which stresses the importance of using meta-estimates or testing the sensitivity of simulation outcomes to a range of elasticity parameters before drawing policy conclusions. The Author 2016.

Softwood chip-n-saw (CNS) is a relatively new stumpage product in the sawtimber- and pulpwood-dominated stumpage markets in the U.S. South. Based on a quarterly data series from 2003 to 2016, this study estimates the demand and supply models of the softwood CNS stumpage market in Louisiana. The two-stage least squares (2SLS) results reveal that own price elasticity of demand (PED) is price elastic, and the cross-price elasticity (XED)with sawtimber approaches unit elasticity. On the supply side, CNS is price inelastic in supply (PES), but more responsive to own price changesthan sawtimber quantity supplied. Further, severance tax increases are found to decrease the supply of CNS, indicating that suppliers are responsive to severance tax incidence. As the first empirical estimation of CNS, the findings should be of interest to those involved in the analysis of Southeastern stumpage markets.

This study analyzed the effects of price changes on the annual costs and returns of 162 oyster farmers in Changhua County, Taiwan, who cultivate oysters at two levels of density: low and high. Specifically, it used the translog profit function to evaluate the effects of changes in oyster prices on output supply and the demand of various inputs at the two densities of oyster cultivation. The study found that high-density farmers generate more profit than low-density farmers because they experience lower average costs. The results of the output supply elasticity with respect to input prices indicate that wages and other miscellaneous prices are the two main factors that negatively and more significantly affect the production of low- and high-stocking-density farmers. Own price elasticity of other miscellaneous input (−1.814), labor input (−1.805), seed input (−1.682), and input of capital (−1.58) was more responsive to price changes for high-density farmers than for low-density farmers. This indicates that increases in input prices have a significant effect on reducing input demand for high-density farmers. The cross-price elasticities of the variable inputs labor–seed and labor–other miscellaneous are −0.648 and −0.649, respectively. These negative elasticities indicate that labor–seed and labor–other miscellaneous are complementary inputs, which suggests their combined application increases farm production synergistically for low-density farmers.

An econometric model is developed and estimated for all brands of coffee sold at the retail level in four supermarkets in Columbus, Ohio. These brands are segmented into 24 categories, and the four stores are classified into two groups, inner-city and suburban, based on 2010 census tract data. Using estimated measures of price-sensitivity, these 24 categories are further segmented into four groups to help guide and clarify the discussion. Estimated results show different purchasing patterns and different levels of price-sensitivity for inner-city and suburban shoppers. Further, these purchasing patterns and levels of price-sensitivity suggest alternative marketing strategies for retailers. Private-label coffee brands are shown to be quite competitive with many national brands, and indeed private-label brands command a market share among inner-city shoppers that is more than double that for the nation (21.95% vs. 9%).

The purpose of this article is to discuss the various phases that the promotion of wool passed through and to then analyse, econometrically, the effectiveness of this promotional activity. In particular, the promotional expenditure elasticity of demand and the own price elasticity of demand will be determined, the latter being important because promotional expenditure has been found to be more effective, ceteris paribus, as demand becomes less elastic. The econometric study is limited to the Australian and New Zealand markets and shows that an increase in promotional expenditure led to a slight increase in demand of 0.097%.

This paper estimates the acreage supply response of natural rubber in Thailand using cointegration methods. Results show that a unique long-run relationship exists between area planted, the rubber price and the replanting subsidy, and the rubber price is weakly exogenous. The short-run own price elasticity of acreage response is low at 0.04 whereas the corresponding long-run elasticity is 2.24, and the use of pricing policy takes a long lead time to take effect. The acreage elasticity in response to a change in the subsidy is 1.17 and the replanting subsidy is a key driver for increasing rubber production.

This paper estimates Thailand's long-run tourism demand elasticities for a set of origin countries by applying dynamic ordinary least squares. A detailed analysis of the potential competing destinations for each origin country is performed to ensure a precise coefficient for the substituting elasticity. A long-run static model of time varying parameter is then used to analyse the effects on the estimation of a potential structural change caused by the 1997 economic crisis and the subsequent change in exchange rate policy. The results show that there are different demand elasticities for each origin market and that own price elasticity is lower than substituting price elasticity for most origin countries. These findings indicate that price-setting strategies should be specific for each origin market and that information about prices in competing destinations needs to be considered. Moreover, the results show that there was a structural change in 1997 that severely affected the estimation.

This paper applies a bootstrap method to the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) proposed by Deaton and Muellbauer (Am Econ Rev 70:312–326, 1980), where the moving blocks bootstrap (MBB) and pairs bootstrap (PB) methods are adopted taking into account serially correlated error terms and limited dependent variables (note that the dependent variables in the AIDS model lie on the interval between zero and one). We aim to obtain the empirical distribution of the expenditure and price elasticities. Note that, the expenditure and price elasticities are obtained using the parameter estimates included in the AIDS model. In the past, a few studies report both the elasticity estimates and their standard errors obtained from the Delta method, but most of studies show only the elasticity estimates (i.e., statistical tests have not been done in most of the past studies). Applying MBB and PB methods to the AIDS model and using Japanese monthly household expenditure data from January, 1975 to December, 2012, we show in this paper that a few elasticities are statistically insignificant. We also compare the standard errors based on the bootstrap method with those based on the Delta method. We obtain the results that the differences between the Delta method and the bootstrap method are not negligible. In addition, the validity of the linear approximated AIDS (LA–AIDS) model which is commonly used in empirical studies is examined. In consequence, we find that the LA–AIDS model shows a poor performance, compared with the AIDS model, because the LA–AIDS model yields inconsistency on the elasticity estimates.

Price responsiveness is argued to be one important factor determining the possibility for a natural monopoly such as a district heating company to exercise its monopoly power. Increased price responsiveness, measured, for example, by the own price elasticity, reduces monopoly power, as consumers increasingly reduce demand as a response to a price increase. However, consumers in single houses having individual metering have presumably higher price responsiveness compared to consumers in residential buildings using collective metering. One major question raised in this paper is thus whether single houses show larger price responsiveness compared to residential buildings. Using cross-sectional data for 187 networks in Sweden for the year 2007 indicates that even if single houses have higher price responsiveness, district heating reveals in general a very inelastic behavior.

The demand for Toll Free Numbers (TFNs) languished from 2000 to 2008; however recent growth in demand caused the FCC to open a new toll-free code (855) with the possibility of new code openings in the next three years. The analysis here indicates the demand for TFNs is highly inelastic (the coefficient for own price elasticity for TFNs is approximately -0.04). This has implications for concerns regarding future exhaust of toll-free codes and the price structure for recovery of SMS/800's costs. This article considers the effects of the limited property rights for TFN, and welfare implications of gray markets for vanity TFNs. The FCC's allocation mechanism for new 855 codes is considered and whether other allocation mechanisms, such as auctions, could be welfare superior.

This paper examines theoretically the structure of optimal (Nash equilibrium) tariff rates in a two-country economy with more than two traded goods. We provide a condition under which the equilibrium tariff rates are uniform in both countries, and explore the relative size of the equilibrium tariff rates in each country when the uniform tariff condition is not satisfied. The elasticities of compensated excess demand for goods play an important role in characterizing the structure of the equilibrium tariff rates. This paper undertakes the analysis using a dual approach.

Several studies have estimated the demand for fish using a variety of modeling procedures. In light of differences in the literature, we perform a meta-analysis of the own-price elasticity of fish from a survey of 168 studies. Regressing the own-price elasticity on study characteristics, we find the own-price elasticity is sensitive to demand specification, data issues, estimation method, and publication characteristics. Also, not only is the demand for salmon more price elastic compared to other fish, but the U.S. demand for fish is more price elastic compared to other countries.

In order to estimate demand elasticities of source differentiated beef in South Korea, this study used the quantity of an endogenous demand system derived through maximizing the economic welfare of market participants including local beef consumers and local and foreign beef suppliers. The demand system is then weighted with respect to quality adjustment parameters to identify the effects of quality differences in source differentiated beef on market demand. As implied by the high relative price of locally produced “Hanwoo” beef, substitutability between local and imported beef is shown to be very weak and the own price elasticity of South Korean beef is shown to be inelastic. Related to quality differences between source differentiated beef, South Korean beef consumers show a preference for Australian beef relative to U.S. and Canadian beef, perhaps due to BSE concerns.

This paper analyses historical data of residential electricity demand in the United States for the period 1970-2007. Such analysis is conducted through an ADF unit root test, Johansen test and a rolling regression. The results indicate that the primary driver of adjustments in electricity consumption is the own price elasticity of demand and growth in real income per capita.

This article uses recent US state level data to estimate the demand for cigarettes. The main contribution of this work is that, unlike previous studies, it takes into account both price and nonprice incentives behind the smuggling of cigarettes. The results show the demand for cigarettes to be elastic and greater than that found in the previous literature. The effects of greater literacy and income on smoking are insignificant. Also, the magnitude of own price elasticity seems affected by whether a correction is made for border prices. Comparing the price and nonprice influences on cigarette smuggling, it seems that price inducements remain the main force behind smuggling. Policy implications are discussed.

This paper studies polydrug use patterns in heroin and cocaine addicts. We use data on two experiments to measure the elasticity of several addictive drugs with respect to heroin and cocaine prices. Own and cross price elasticities are estimated while controlling for non-price related sources of variance. The results indicate that heroin addicts have an inelastic demand for heroin, complement heroin consumption with cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol and substitute Valium and cigarettes. Additionally, heroin addicts’ cocaine consumption is inelastic, and they substitute cocaine with marijuana and Valium, and complement it with alcohol. Cocaine addicts have an elastic demand for cocaine; they complement cocaine with heroin and alcohol and substitute it with marijuana and Valium. Cocaine addicts’ demand for heroin is inelastic; and, for this group, alcohol is a complement to heroin while cocaine, marijuana and Valium are substitutes to heroin.

PurposeThe demand for alcohol is a well‐researched topic, yet the published literature regarding consumer responses to changes in the price of alcohol includes many conflicting and inconsistent results. This paper seeks to present an analysis of known own‐price elasticity estimates, and to attempt to understand why reported results differ.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken to analysing the data is the meta‐regression approach. Specifically, the meta‐regression considers 150 beers, spirits, and wines, own price elasticity point estimates, which have been drawn from studies that consider demand responses to changes in the price of alcohol in 18 different countries.FindingsThe results of the empirical work reported in this paper suggest that the year of the study, the length of study, the per capita level of alcohol consumption, and the relative ethanol share of a beverage are important factors when explaining variations in consumer demand responses to changes in the price of alcohol. Interestingly, the study also suggests that country‐specific and beverage‐specific effects are not important.Originality/valueThe paper is valuable as it uses the meta‐regression framework to control for study design characteristics and, once these characteristics are controlled for, it becomes possible to identify the underlying trend in the demand for alcohol. Specifically, the trend was shown to be one where the demand for alcoholic beverages became increasingly inelastic up to 1969 and decreasingly inelastic thereafter.

Analyzing urban hotel properties located in major metropolitan markets during the 1989 to 2000 period, this study provides empirical evidence that various measures of current income, expectations of future income, the own price, and the price of substitutes, are statistically important factors influencing lodging demand at the property level. This study examines the relationship between lodging demand and these economic factors at the property level using a large cross section of properties and a long time horizon. The results show that income elasticities computed at the property level are significantly lower than those computed using aggregate lodging data. The results also show that the magnitude of the impact of GDP on lodging demand is similar to the magnitude of the sum of disposable personal income and corporate income. The relative magnitude of the impact of each of these economic factors on lodging demand varies across lodging market segments.

Using annual data from Canadian provinces, this paper studies the effects of a drastic reduction in Canadian cigarette taxes in 1994 on cross-border smuggling. The results show that the policy was successful in that the border prices seem to not have had a statistically significant impact on cigarette sales. The own price elasticity of cigarette demand in Canada is estimated to be around −0.7. The elasticity is slightly lower when the border-price effects are taken into account and is larger than the corresponding estimates for the USA, implying that dollar-for-dollar there might be greater opportunities for reducing smoking in Canada through higher taxes than the USA.

Price elasticities characterize the effect of price changes on demands in a multi-product context. We demonstrate and explain two perverse properties concerning price elasticities in the presence of network effects when three or more substitutable products are involved: Cross-price elasticities are not necessarily positive, and own-price elasticities are not necessarily negative. These findings imply that the consequences of firms' price moves in a competitive market when network effects are in play deserve further scrutiny.

This article presents an empirical method for a simple model of self-employed households. In this model, the “internal wage” plays a crucial role of equilibrating the demand and supply of family labor within the household. By paying special attention to this wage, all structural parameters of the model can be estimated and are used to verify the seemingly anomalous characteristics of self- employed households: They earn less (per hour or week) and work longer than salary and wage workers and their own price elasticity of output supply is small or negative.

The objectives of the study are to recognize the factors influence animal food consumption (catfish, beef, chicken, chickens egg, condensed sugar milk), income elasticity value of animal food consumption, own price elasticity value of animal food consumption, and amount of animal protein consumption by the people in special region Yogyakarta Province.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic effects of sales promotions. We create dynamic brand sales models (for weekly store-level scanner data) by relating store intercepts and a brand's own price elasticity to a measure of the cumulated previous price discounts – amount and time – for that brand as well as for other brands. The brand's own non-price promotional response parameters are related to the time since the most recent promotion for that brand as well as for other brands. We demonstrate that these dynamic econometric models provide greater managerial relevance than static models can.

This paper studies the aggregate substitution and expansion effects triggered by changes in input prices in a context where firms supply a homogeneous commodity and compete in quantities a la Cournot. We derive a sufficient condition for the existence of a Cournot equilibrium and show that this condition also ensures that the Le Chatelier-Samuelson principle is satisfied in the aggregate at the Cournot equilibrium, although it may not be satisfied at the firm level.

The agricultural workforce in the UK has been declining since the middle of the last century. However, the different types of agricultural labour have been variously affected, and hence the composition of the agricultural workforce has been undergoing continuous change. These changes in the structure of the agricultural workforce have serious implications not only for the policy makers but also for farm workers and farm businesses and those that service their needs. The study compares and explores the own price elasticity of demand for two groups of agricultural labour – that of family and hired – to enable the effects of agricultural policy on the structure of the agricultural workforce in both the short and long run to be estimated. This was done using two different methodologies – single equation and duality based system models. The similarities in the resulting elasticities give confidence in the estimates. These estimates can be used to help forecast the future structure of the agricultural workforce.

Recently, marketers realize that in order to maximize company profitability in the market for frequently purchased packaged goods, there should be a balanced use of both acquisition programs in targeting competitors’ consumers as well as retention programs in maintaining current retained consumers. One condition, in particular, is important to successful implementation of such programs: marketers need to understand consumers’ underlying motivational factors in making their repeat purchases and switching behaviors and the differential magnitudes of impacts of each marketing variables, along with brand preferences. In other words, marketers need to consider the role of purchase-occasion heterogeneity on the design and implementation of both types of marketing programs. By proposing a first-order brand choice model as a framework to capture the purchase-occasion heterogeneity, this study demonstrates that without accounting for it, marketers are highly likely to be misled by the resulting parameter estimates and two types of price elasticities and consequently, design wrong marketing programs due to their misunderstanding. In addition, this study finds that a single parameter for price in zero-order brand choice model is likely to push cross-price elasticity downward and own price elasticity upward due to aggregation bias. Overall, this study provides important managerial implications to marketing practitioners.

The paper examines the demand for both farm milk (unpacked fluid milk), produced without safely controls, and fluid milk (packed fluid milk), produced under fluid milk technology such as pastorization or UHT, based on the data from a household survey which was carried out in Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey. Izmir households consume 6.7 kg/month farm milk and 5.6 kg/month fluid milk, 12.3 kg/month in total. We conducted an analysis using a Heckman selection model since selection bias was potentially an important problem in this study. Heckman estimations for farm milk and fluid milk were used to check whether Heckman correction was required for each type of milk. The Heckman analysis yielded own price elasticities as -0.18 and -0.16 for fluid milk and farm milk, respectively. Fluid milk consumers consider farm milk as a substitute while farm milk consumers do not see fluid milk as a substitute. According to our results, Izmir consumers tend to prefer farm milk to a large extend. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this paper we assess the relative effectiveness of user charges and administrative waiting times as a tool for rationing public healthcare in Italy. We measure demand elasticities by estimating a simultaneous equation model of GP primary care visits, public specialist consultations and private specialist consultations, as if they were part of an incomplete system of demand. We find that own price elasticity of the demand for public specialist consultation is about -0.3, while administrative waiting time plays a less important role. No substitution exists between the demand for public and private specialists, so that user charges act as a net deterrent for over-consumption. The public provision of healthcare does not induce the wealthy to opt out. Moreover our evidence suggests that user charges and waiting lists do not serve redistributive purposes.

Food demand can be found dynamic, altering by the change in price and income. How great the influence of those changes to food consumption is the important information as the basic consideration for government in creating policy related to food consumption. The objective of the research, which has survey design, was to analyze staple food consumption and demand pattern in household in Indonesia. The research was conducted in Bogor, from March to June 2008 by using secondary data Susenas year 2005 with 64.709 households as the samples. The staple food analyzed were rice, corn, cassava, sweet potato, wheat flour and its derived product (instant noodle, noodle). Data was processed by SAS program version 6.12 and Double-Log Regression econometrical model. Then, it was analyzed descriptively. Result shows that rice has the biggest expenditure proportion among staple food. Almost all staple food is obtained by purchasing, except in corn, cassava, and sweet potatoes. Energy contribution from rice reaches half of total energy consumption. The consumption of rice, corn, cassava, sweet potatoes, wheat flour and its derived product, instant noodle, and wheat noodle per capita per year are 100.52 kg, 3.36 kg, 11.67 kg, 4.10 kg, 5.09 kg, 3.39 kg, and 0.22 kg. Staple food which has consumption participation level almost 100% is rice. The own price elasticity of staple foods are not elastic, except in corn, wheat flour and its derived product. The income elasticity of all staple foods is not elastic in all category of region and income stratification. The demand elasticity of staple food give some implications on consumption and food consumption improvement, they are: 1) raising price of staple food can decrease consumption, thus, price stability is very important, 2) almost all staple foods has not elastic income elasticity, so that food consumption improvement needs great stimulus of increasing income, 3) poor household is greatly influenced by the increasing of price, thus, food consumption improvement for them must be conducted by doing many relevant efforts, 4) target of decreasing rice consumption is still cannot be reached, so that staple food diversification must be continuously developed, 5) in order to develop local food consumption, like corn, cassava, and sweet potato, the development of agro industry based on local food and Communication Information Education (CIE) about food consumption diversification are essential to be conducted. Keywords: consumption and demand pattern, staple food, Susenas

This paper shows that the method of estimating of demand functions may contain an erroneous, implicit assumption when aggregated data are used. This assumption, revealed by the choice of regressors, yields estimates of own price elasticity and other coefficients that are inconsistent. It can also cause heteroscedasticity in the second stage of two-stage least squares estimation where none would otherwise exist.

This paper examines the role of prices and factor endowments in the determination of Australian imports. We consider two factors, labour and capital. The supply of capital is assumed fixed, labour is assumed fixed in the short run. and variable in the medium run, Direct as well as indirect estimates of short-run and medium-run import price and quantity elasticities are derived. Allowance is made for technological change, and various separability hypotheses are tested. As predicted by the Le Châtelier Principle. the own price elasticity of imports is larger in the medium run than in the short run.

Many empirical studies in marketing and economics have estimated brand price elasticities for specific products in markets. Their results indicate that price elasticities seem to differ across brands, product categories, retail outlets, and regions. However, there has been very little research which examines the factors associated with these observed differences. This paper focuses on the promotional price elasticities of established, major brands in stable categories. It identifies some characteristics of markets which may be associated with differences in price elasticities for frequently purchased nondurables. A cross-sectional model of the effect of these market characteristics on price elasticities is developed and estimated utilizing own price elasticity estimates for brands at twelve stores. The results indicate market characteristics such as brand market share, couponing activity, display activity and feature activity explain a substantial amount of the variation in promotional price elasticities.

A quarterly demand model for US broilers was developed to focus on factors affecting wholesale price, export demand, retail to wholesale price margin, and domestic demand. The resulting equations were used to assess the effects of changes in retail price on domestic broiler consumption. The own price elasticity of demand from broilers was very inelastic, which implies large price swings are produced by small quantity changes. Brazilian poultry exports have a significant influence on US broiler exports, and retail beef price and per capita income have a strong positive influence on domestic consumption.

The authors conclude that the manufacturing sector is very capable of substituting capital and labor for steel and energy. A ballpark figure for these elasticities is from .9 between labor and steel to 2.3 between labor and energy, although more of these elasticities are greater than or equal to one. These results support the findings of previous researchers that resource inputs, taken separately, are highly substitutable for reproducible capital and labor. This study also presents evidence of substitution possibilities among natural-resource inputs. This has not been examined by researchers who aggregated resources as one input. This study finds that the own price elasticity of energy is as high as Pindyck's estimate. Thus, whether an elasticity estimate is high or low does not seem to depend solely on whether time-series or cross-section data are used. Estimates of full elasticities of substitution are computed. Capital, energy, and steel have been significantly substituted for labor. Separability tests show that the production specifications of most studies in this area are not valid and may, therefore, have biased estimates. Aggregating natural resource inputs into a single input is not a valid specification either. 16 references, 4 tables.