Measuring the price responsiveness of gasoline demand: Economic shape restrictions and nonparametric demand estimation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blundell, Richard; Horowitz, Joel L.; Parey, Matthias
• 署名单位: University of London; University College London; Northwestern University; University of Essex
• 刊物名称: QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1759-7323
• DOI: 10.3982/QE91
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 29-51
• 关键词: consumer demand; Nonparametric Estimation; gasoline demand; deadweight loss

摘要

This paper develops a new method for estimating a demand function and the welfare consequences of price changes. The method is applied to gasoline demand in the United States and is applicable to other goods. The method uses shape restrictions derived from economic theory to improve the precision of a nonparametric estimate of the demand function. Using data from the U. S. National Household Travel Survey, we show that the restrictions are consistent with the data on gasoline demand and remove the anomalous behavior of a standard nonparametric estimator. Our approach provides new insights about the price responsiveness of gasoline demand and the way responses vary across the income distribution. We find that price responses vary non-monotonically with income. In particular, we find that low-and high-income consumers are less responsive to changes in gasoline prices than are middle-income consumers. We find similar results using comparable data from Canada.