The structural consumer demand methods used to estimate the parameters of collective household models are typically either very restrictive and easy to implement or very general and dif cult to estimate. In this paper, we provide a middle ground. We adapt the very general framework of Browning, Chiappori and Lewbel (2007) by adding a simple restriction that recasts the empirical model from a hi...

The higher our aspirations, the higher the probability that we have to adjust them downwards when forming more realistic expectations later on. This paper shows that the costs induced by high aspirations are not trivial. We first develop a theoretical framework to identify the factors that determine the effect of aspirations on expected utility. Then we present evidence from a lab experiment on...

This is the first paper on consumer search where the cost of going back to stores already searched is explicitly taken into account. We show that the optimal sequential search rule under costly second visits is very different from the traditional reservation price rule in that it is nonstationary and not independent of previously sampled prices. We explore the implications of costly second visi...

We have isolated and characterized three anti-recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs) that recognize nonoverlapping epitopes on rHuEPO. Anti-EPO MoAb D11 neutralizes rHuEPO activity whereas MoAbs F12 and 9G8A do not. This suggests that D11 may bind to the rHuEPO active site. MoAbs F12 and D11 recognize conformation dependent epitopes whereas 9G8A does not. Immuno...

This paper shows how revealed preference relations, observed under general budget sets, can be extended using closure operators which impose certain assumptions on preferences. Common extensions are based on the assumption that preferences are convex and/or monotonic, but we also consider satiated single-peaked preferences. For the obtained extended relations, the paper provides necessary and s...

Dekel, Lipman, and Rustichini (2001) characterize preferences over menus of lotteries that can be represented by the use of a unique subjective state space and a prior. We investigate what would be the appropriate version of Dynamic Consistency in such a setup. The condition we Önd, which we call Flexibility Consistency, is linked to a comparative theory of preference for áexibility. When the s...

The primary objective of this paper is to develop a framework in which a decisionmaker may have subjective beliefs about the “riskiness” of prospects, even though the risk structure of these prospects is objectively specified. Put differently, we investigate preferences over risky alternatives by postulating that such preferences arise from more basic preferences that act on the subjective tran...

Pashardes (1991) and Banks, Blundell and Preston (1994) use parametric methods to estimate lifetime equivalence scales. Their approaches put parametric restrictions on the differences in within-period expenditure needs across household types, the intertemporal allocation of expenditure, and the shapes of commodity demand equations. This paper puts parametric structure only on the differences in...

We consider the class of valuations on indivisible items called gross-substitute (GS). This class was introduced by Kelso and Crawford (1982) and is widely used in studies of markets with indivisibilities. GS is a condition on the demand-flow in a specific scenario: some items become more expensive while other items retain their price. We prove that GS implies a much stronger condition, describ...

This paper investigates empirically why Japan’s household savings rate fell in the 1990s. We constructed an economic model consisting of two types of household: unconstrained life-cycle households and liquidity-constrained households. Unconstrained households generally save, but liquidity-constrained households consume all of their disposable income. We found that the proportion of liquidity-co...