Saul H. Hymans

The allocation of household income to food consumption

Abstract Low-income households - those toward which various income supplement programs are aimed - not only spend a large share of their incomes on food, but exhibit a higher income elasticity of demand for food than does the rest of the population. Further, a greater proportion of the marginal income generated via welfare payments and food subsidy programs (e.g., food stamps) is devoted to food consumption than is true of wage income. These are among the major conclusions emerging from an extensive Engel Curve analysis applied to the data generated by a five-year (1968–1972) panel study of 5000 U.S. households.

Some Comments on Papers by Dent and Geweke, Welsch, and Kelejian

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the line of analysis of model specification that Christopher Sims developed in 1972 on the basis of earlier work by Clive Granger (1969). The basic theorems—or implications of exogeneity, as they are referred to in this literature—are easily understood. If the vector x is exogenous in a dynamic model determining y , then y should be expressible as a true distributed lag in x , that is, no leads in x should matter; that is the final form for y . Further, whatever determines x , it cannot be y so that an autoregressive equation in x should permit no lagged y s to be significant, the lagged x s in effect eliminating any spurious correlation between x and lagged y s. These basic theorems are testable implications of the assumption of exogeneity of x .

Money-demand and the efficacy of fiscal policy

Abstract An M2 money-demand function including the market value of government debt is estimated. The resulting equation both tracks the recent movements in money-demand and has implications for the efficacy of fiscal policy as a tool of stabilization policy.