this is the first study to attempt to explain income inequality using unemployment and inflation and international cross-sectional data. using a sure system, inflation is found to have an increasing impact on the shares of the lower 80% of the income distribution, while reducing the share of the highest 20%. unemployment has a negative effect on the share of the first 40%, while increases the s...

This paper estimates a housing demand function from a four year panel study. The findings indicate that the income elasticity of housing demand is around .6 or .7 for owners and around .5 for renters. This means that the percentage of income spent on housing declines as income rises, and that the property tax falls more heavily on the poor than on the rich. This finding differs from earlier stu...

Because of its policy implications, the income elasticity of health care expenditures is a subject of much debate. Governments may have an interest in subsidizing the care of those with low income. Using more than two decades of data from the Iran Household Expenditure and Income Survey, this article investigates the relationship between income and health care expenditure in urban and rural are...

The strength of the behavioral response to a tax rate change depends on the environment individuals operate in, and may be manipulated by instruments controlled by the government. We first derive a measure of the social benefit to affecting this elasticity. The paper then examines this effect in the solution to the optimal income taxation problem when such an instrument is available, first in a...

Most classical tests of constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) based on individual portfolio composition use cross sectional data. Such tests must assume that the distributions of wealth and preferences are independent. We use panel data to analyze how individuals’ portfolio allocation between risky and riskless assets varies in response to changes in total financial wealth. We find the elastic...

Comparisons of well-being across heterogenous households necessitate that households' incomes are adjusted for differences in size and composition: equivalence scales arecommonly used to achieve this objective.Equivalence scales with constant elasticity with respect to family size have been argued to provide a good approximation to a large variety of scales (see, e.g., B. Buhmann, L. Rainwater,...

Employing a neoclassical growth model with a constant elasticity of substitution production function, we develop a comparative static and dynamic analysis of the effects of the elasticity of substitution between inputs on the steady state growth path, growth threshold, speed of convergence and savings rates. Unlike earlier studies along these lines, we incorporate human capital, along with phys...

This paper seeks further evidence on the elasticity of calorie demand with respect to household resources. The case presented is for urban areas of Papua New Guinea, where just over one-half of the population appear to obtain less than the recommended amount of dietary energy. The relationship between per capita calorie consumption and per capita expenditure in urban areas of Papua New Guinea i...

741 National Tax Journal Vol. LIV, No. 4 Abstract Market–based health care reform proposals typically rely on 1) consumer choice among competing health plans, 2) premiums paid out–of–pocket for higher priced plans, and 3) a significant out– of–pocket premium–price elasticity of health plan choice. Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code exempts employee out–of–pocket premiums from personal inc...

An elasticity summarizes a large amount of information in a single number. Levels and distribution of incomes, price levels of the specific good and of substitute and complementary goods, preferences and tastes, transaction costs, etc., can, ceteris paribus, affect the measured value of any particular demand-price elasticity. The elasticity concept normalizes for the measurement scales (e.g., p...