BACKGROUND This study uses cigarette price elasticity to evaluate the effect of a new excise tax increase on cigarette consumption and to investigate responses from various types of smokers. METHODS Our sample consisted of current smokers between 17 and 69 years old interviewed during an annual face-to-face survey conducted by Taiwan National Health Research Institutes between 2000 to 2003. W...

We study absolute income poverty measurement when agents differ in preferences and face different prices. The difficulty arising from price heterogeneity is typically solved using equivalent income, but the choice of the reference price vector remains arbitrary. We provide a way to solve this arbitrariness problem by making the poverty measure consistent with preferences: an agent qualifies as ...

A model of the Iranian wheat market is specified and fitted to data from 1981-2008. Severaldiagnostic tests were employed in the analysis to determine the specification of the model. Despitethe simplicity of the model and data problems, an examination of the econometric model leads toseveral conclusions with possible important policy implications for the wheat economy in Iran.The general result...

Textbook analysis tells us that in a competitive labor market, the introduction of a minimum wage above the competitive equilibrium wage will cause unemployment. This paper makes two contributions to the basic theory of the minimum wage. First, we analyze the effects of a higher minimum wage in terms of poverty rather than in terms of unemployment. Second, we extend the standard textbook model ...

This paper uses a general method of moment regression technique to estimate an energy demand function with a dataset covering 71 countries between 1965 and 2010. The estimated results show that countries undergoing rapid economic growth may show relatively higher income and price elasticities in the long run. The higher income elasticities and lower price elasticity in the short run of rapid gr...

Providers are incorporating novel techniques to cope with prospective aspects of trading like resource allocation over future demands and its pricing elasticity that was not foreseen before. To leverage the pricing elasticity of upcoming demand and supply, we employ financial option theory (future contracts) as a mechanism to alleviate the risk in resource allocation over future demands. This s...

Our objective is to estimate the relative price elasticity of demand for malt liquor beer (MLB), regular beer, hard liquor, and a combined group of all other alcoholic beverages. Three hundred and twenty-nine alcohol consumers (mostly male) in South-Central Los Angeles answered a series of questions pertaining to expected consumption responses to hypothetical price increases. We found that base...

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...