IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v47y2011i3p289-299.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Engel's Law Reconsidered

Author

Listed:
  • Chakrabarty, Manisha
  • Hildenbrand, Werner

Abstract

Engel's Law expresses a negative stochastic association of the bivariate distribution of income and food share across a population. Among the many different definitions which can be found in the statistical literature four concepts are discussed and tested: Kendall's τ, quadrant dependence, stochastic decreasing conditional food share distribution function and decreasing regression. Only the last one is used in the economic literature, yet it does not imply useful information of the underlying distribution. For linking Engels's Law to micro-economics, stronger concepts of stochastic association are needed. This motivates the empirical study of the proposed alternative concepts of negative association.

Suggested Citation

  • Chakrabarty, Manisha & Hildenbrand, Werner, 2011. "Engel's Law Reconsidered," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 289-299.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:47:y:2011:i:3:p:289-299
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2011.01.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406811000309
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2011.01.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard W. Blundell & Martin Browning & Ian A. Crawford, 2003. "Nonparametric Engel Curves and Revealed Preference," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 205-240, January.
    2. Roger Newson, 2002. "Parameters behind "nonparametric" statistics: Kendall's tau,Somers' D and median differences," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 2(1), pages 45-64, February.
    3. Joachim Engel & Alois Kneip, 1996. "Recent approaches to estimating Engel curves," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 187-212, June.
    4. Hardle, W. & Jerison, M., 1990. "Cross section Engel curves over time," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1990016, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    5. Garry F. Barrett & Stephen G. Donald, 2003. "Consistent Tests for Stochastic Dominance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 71-104, January.
    6. Karl Schlag, 2008. "A new method for constructing exact tests without making any assumptions," Economics Working Papers 1109, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    7. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 8355.
    8. Lewbel, Arthur, 1991. "The Rank of Demand Systems: Theory and Nonparametric Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 711-730, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leonhard K. Lades, 2012. "The impact of differential satiation dynamics on changing consumer behavior, wellbeing, and innovative activity," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2012-16, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    2. Andrea Mantovi, 2014. "On Luxury and Equilibrium," Review of Economic Analysis, Digital Initiatives at the University of Waterloo Library, vol. 6(2), pages 87-118, December.
    3. Leonhard Lades, 2013. "Explaining shapes of Engel curves: the impact of differential satiation dynamics on consumer behavior," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1023-1045, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chakrabarty, Manisha & Hildenbrand, Werner, 2009. "Engel’s Law Reconsidered," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 22/2009, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    2. Menggen Chen, 2022. "Engel’s law in China: Some new evidence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 1640-1662, August.
    3. Richard Blundell & Xiaohong Chen & Dennis Kristensen, 2003. "Nonparametric IV estimation of shape-invariant Engel curves," CeMMAP working papers CWP15/03, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    4. Cherchye, Laurens & Demuynck, Thomas & De Rock, Bram, 2018. "Transitivity of preferences: when does it matter?," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    5. Gozalo, Pedro L., 1997. "Nonparametric bootstrap analysis with applications to demographic effects in demand functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 357-393, December.
    6. Takashi Unayama, 2006. "The Engel curve for alcohol and the rank of demand systems," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(7), pages 1019-1038, November.
    7. Richard Blundell & Dennis Kristensen & Rosa Matzkin, 2017. "Individual counterfactuals with multidimensional unobserved heterogeneity," CeMMAP working papers 60/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    8. Mette Christensen, 2007. "Integrability of Demand Accounting for Unobservable Heterogeneity: A Test on Panel Data," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0713, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    9. Gong, X. & van Soest, A.H.O. & Zhang, P., 2000. "Sexual Bias and Household Consumption : A Semiparametic Analysis of Engel curves in Rural China," Other publications TiSEM 896cf4d1-37e5-490b-9e05-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. repec:stn:sotoec:1311 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Richard Blundell & Martin Browning & Ian Crawford, 2008. "Best Nonparametric Bounds on Demand Responses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1227-1262, November.
    12. Stephan B. Bruns & Alessio Moneta, 2017. "Intertemporal propensity to consume," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 295-314, April.
    13. Arthur Lewbel, 2003. "A rational rank four demand system," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 127-135.
    14. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2023. "Nonparametric Models in Consumer Behaviour," Working Papers ECARES 2023-04, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Song, Ze & Li, Lianyou & Ma, Chao, 2013. "The EASI Demand System : Evidence from China Household," MPRA Paper 48435, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Ian Crawford & Matthew Polisson, 2015. "Demand Analysis with Partially Observed Prices," Discussion Papers in Economics 15/12, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester, revised Dec 2016.
    17. Chai Andreas & Moneta Alessio, 2014. "Escaping Satiation Dynamics: Some Evidence from British Household Data," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 234(2-3), pages 299-327, April.
    18. Unayama, Takashi, 2004. "Upward bias in the consumer price index under the zero-inflation economy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 139-144, October.
    19. Jesus Gonzalo & Jose Olmo, 2014. "Conditional Stochastic Dominance Tests In Dynamic Settings," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(3), pages 819-838, August.
    20. Matteo Barigozzi & Alessio Moneta, 2016. "Identifying the Independent Sources of Consumption Variation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 420-449, March.
    21. Gaurav Nayyar, 2009. "The Demand for Services in India. A Mirror Image of Engel's Law for Food?," Economics Series Working Papers 451, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:47:y:2011:i:3:p:289-299. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jmateco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.