Demand studies and understanding consumer behavior remain two of the most important areas of analysis by practicing applied economists and econometricians. This book presents research on the estimation of demand systems and the measurement of consumer preferences.
Significant recent changes in the structure and composition of households make the study of the economic relationships within the household of particular interest for academics and policy-makers. In this context, Household Economic Behaviors, through its focus on theoretical and empirical chapters on a range of economic behaviors within the household, provides a new and timely viewpoint. Following the Introduction and one or two surveys which give a general background, the volume includes theoretical and empirical perspectives on allocation of available time within the household, monetary and non-monetary transfers between household members, and intra-household bargaining.
Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging synthesizes the economic literature on aging and the subjects associated with it, including social insurance and healthcare costs, both of which are of interest to policymakers and academics. These volumes, the first of a new subseries in the Handbooks in Economics, describe and analyze scholarship created since the inception of serious attention began in the late 1970s, including information from general economics journals, from various field journals in economics, especially, but not exclusively, those covering labor markets and human resource issues, from interdisciplinary social science and life science journals, and from papers by economists published in journals associated with gerontology, history, sociology, political science, and demography, amongst others. - Dissolves the barriers between policymakers and scholars by presenting comprehensive portraits of social and theoretical issues - Synthesizes valuable data on the topic from a variety of journals dating back to the late 1970s in a convenient, comprehensive resource - Presents diverse perspectives on subjects that can be closely associated with national and regional concerns - Offers comprehensive, critical reviews and expositions of the essential aspects of the economics of population aging
This book provides a comprehensive, modern, and self-contained account of the research in the growing area of family economics. It is intended for graduate students in economics and for researchers in other fields interested in the economic approach to the family.
Collective Household Consumption Behavior: Revealed Preference Analysis presents a nonparametric `revealed preference' methodology for analyzing collective consumption behavior in practical applications, while possibly accounting for externalities, public consumption and the use of assignable quantity information. Collective Household Consumption Behavior: Revealed Preference Analysis considers two types of collective models: The general collective model considers general preferences of the individual household members, which allow for externalities and public consumption within the household. The special collective models that do not allow for consumption externalities. After the introduction, section 2 sets the stage by introducing the revealed preference characterizations of the unitary model. Section 3 presents a collective model that allows for general individual preferences and discusses its revealed preference characterization. Sections 4 and 5 show how to bring this theoretical characterization to observational data. More specifically, Section 4 introduces the mixed integer programming characterizations for special collective models that impose restrictions on the household members' preferences. Section 5 does the same for the general collective model. Throughout Section 2 to Section 5, the authors illustrate the most relevant concepts by means of numerical examples. In Section 6 we subsequently illustrate our main results for data drawn from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey.
What constitutes a good life? For most people, well-being involves more than a high income or material prosperity alone. Many non-material aspects, such as health, family life, living environment, job quality and the meaningful use of time are at least as important. Together, these factors also influence the degree to which people are satisfied with their lives, and help to determine how happy they feel. This book argues that happiness and life satisfaction do not form a good basis for measuring well-being, and proposes an alternative method that not only considers the various aspects of well-being, but also the fact that people have their own views on what is important in life. Not limited just to theory, the book also presents a large-scale, representative survey involving more than 3000 adults from over 2000 Belgian families, which charted the various aspects of the individual well-being of Belgians. Focusing on the unequal distribution of these various aspects of well-being within families, the survey showed that some Belgians are more likely to suffer from cumulative deprivation in multiple dimensions. Based on this innovative study, the book describes which people in society are worst off – and these are not necessarily only people on low incomes or those who feel unhappy – and proposes that policymakers prioritise these individuals.
Constituting the most advanced and comprehensive treatment of one of the cardinal issues in social theory, a diverse group of social scientists address the problems, principles and practices involved in comparing the well-being of different individuals.
Recent approaches to economic demography, investigating the effect of the transition to low mortality and low fertility on economic development. Over the last two hundred years, mortality and fertility levels in the Western world have dropped to unprecedented levels. This demographic transition was accompanied by an economic transition that led to widespread education and economic growth after centuries of near-stagnation. At the same time, other changes have occurred in family structures, culture, and the organization of society. Economists have only recently begun to take into account the demographic transition from high mortality and high fertility when modeling and researching economic development. This CESifo volume reviews recent approaches to economic demography, considering such topics as the bio-geographic origins of comparative development differences, the role of health improvements and mortality decline, as well as physiological, familial, cultural, and social aspects. After an overview of the study of demography and economic demography, the chapters cover subjects including the Neolithic era and the period of the formation of states and social institutions; longevity and economic growth; household decision making and fertility; land inequality, education, and marriage in nineteenth century Prussia; and caste systems and technology in pre-modern societies. The book concludes with a call for further investigation of the institutional and social factors that influence demographics and economies, suggesting that unified growth theory offers a potential approach to studying development. Contributors Matteo Cervellati, Francesco Cinnirella, David de la Croix, Carl-Johann Dalgaard, Matthias Doepke, Elena Esposito, Davide Fiaschi, Tamara Fioroni, Oded Galor, Boris Gershman, Erik Hornung, Fabian Kindermann, Nils-Petter Lagerlöf, Holger Strulik, Uwe Sunde, David N. Weil
Surveying a broad body of theory and evidence, the contributors examine the many social and cultural factors that influence decisions at the family and household level about the allocation of time, income, assets, and other resources.