IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/atlecj/v40y2012i2p161-171.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Note on Allen’s Arc Elasticity with Arithmetic, Geometric and Harmonic Means

Author

Listed:
  • Chin Yang
  • Anthony Loviscek
  • Hui Cheng
  • Ken Hung

Abstract

Discussion and debate on the application of Allen’s arc elasticity has continued into the 21st century. This note demonstrates three points. First, perceived differences between Allen’s geometric mean elasticity and a constant demand elasticity based on an assumed isoelastic demand curve are negligible for small changes in price and quantity, which comprise the vast majority of such changes. Second, in some cases of rapid security or commodity price movements, the harmonic mean may provide the most accurate elasticity estimates across measures of central tendency. Third, because the arithmetic and harmonic means serve as bounds for the geometric mean, an elasticity based on the geometric mean may be considered a prudent choice among these three on this basis alone. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Chin Yang & Anthony Loviscek & Hui Cheng & Ken Hung, 2012. "A Note on Allen’s Arc Elasticity with Arithmetic, Geometric and Harmonic Means," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 40(2), pages 161-171, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:40:y:2012:i:2:p:161-171
    DOI: 10.1007/s11293-012-9315-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11293-012-9315-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11293-012-9315-5?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. Panagariya, Arvind & Shah, Shekhar & Mishra, Deepak, 2001. "Demand elasticities in international trade: are they really low?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 313-342, April.
    2. John F. McDonald & Yuliya Yurova, 2007. "Property taxation and selling prices of industrial real estate," Review of Accounting and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(3), pages 273-284, August.
    3. J. Gallego-Diaz, 1944. "A Note on the Arc Elasticity of Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 12(2), pages 114-115.
    4. Sofia Berto Villas‐Boas, 2009. "An empirical investigation of the welfare effects of banning wholesale price discrimination," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(1), pages 20-46, March.
    5. Shane Miller & Eckhard Platen, 2010. "Real-World Pricing for a Modified Constant Elasticity of Variance Model," Applied Mathematical Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 147-175.
    6. Greenblatt, Jeffery B. & Succar, Samir & Denkenberger, David C. & Williams, Robert H. & Socolow, Robert H., 2007. "Baseload wind energy: modeling the competition between gas turbines and compressed air energy storage for supplemental generation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1474-1492, March.
    7. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    8. C. C. Holt & P. A. Samuelson, 1946. "The Graphic Depiction of Elasticity of Demand," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 354-354.
    9. Natalya Ketenci & Idil Uz, 2011. "Bilateral and regional trade elasticities of the EU," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 839-854, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. David M. Ritzwoller & Joseph P. Romano, 2019. "Uncertainty in the Hot Hand Fallacy: Detecting Streaky Alternatives to Random Bernoulli Sequences," Papers 1908.01406, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    2. Shazia Ghani, 2011. "A re-visit to Minsky after 2007 financial meltdown," Post-Print halshs-01027435, HAL.
    3. Steininger, Lea & Hesse, Casimir, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 357, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    4. Christiane Goodfellow & Dirk Schiereck & Steffen Wippler, 2013. "Are behavioural finance equity funds a superior investment? A note on fund performance and market efficiency," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 14(2), pages 111-119, April.
    5. Cagli, Efe Caglar & Taskin, Dilvin & Evrim Mandaci, Pınar, 2019. "The short- and long-run efficiency of energy, precious metals, and base metals markets: Evidence from the exponential smooth transition autoregressive models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. Andrew Weinbach & Rodney J. Paul, 2009. "National television coverage and the behavioural bias of bettors: the American college football totals market," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 55-66, April.
    7. Plantinga, Andrew J. & Provencher, Bill, 2001. "Internal Consistency In Models Of Optimal Resource Use Under Uncertainty," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20712, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    8. Growitsch Christian & Nepal Rabindra & Stronzik Marcus, 2015. "Price Convergence and Information Efficiency in German Natural Gas Markets," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 87-103, February.
    9. Oxelheim, Lars & Rafferty, Michael, 2005. "On the static efficiency of secondary bond markets," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 117-135, April.
    10. Baoqiang Zhan & Shu Zhang & Helen S. Du & Xiaoguang Yang, 2022. "Exploring Statistical Arbitrage Opportunities Using Machine Learning Strategy," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 60(3), pages 861-882, October.
    11. Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2022. "Factor volatility spillover and its implications on factor premia," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Gaio, Luiz Eduardo & Stefanelli, Nelson Oliveira & Pimenta, Tabajara & Bonacim, Carlos Alberto Grespan & Gatsios, Rafael Confetti, 2022. "The impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on market efficiency: Evidence for the developed stock market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    13. Anastasios Evgenidis & Stephanos Papadamou, 2021. "The impact of unconventional monetary policy in the euro area. Structural and scenario analysis from a Bayesian VAR," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 5684-5703, October.
    14. Qin, Chao & Saunders, Gordon & Loth, Eric, 2017. "Offshore wind energy storage concept for cost-of-rated-power savings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 148-157.
    15. Nuruddeen Usman & Kodili Nwanneka & Nduka, 2023. "Announcement Effect of COVID-19 on Cryptocurrencies," Asian Economics Letters, Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association, vol. 3(3), pages 1-4.
    16. Tihana Škrinjarić, 2019. "Time Varying Spillovers between the Online Search Volume and Stock Returns: Case of CESEE Markets," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-30, October.
    17. Carol Alexander & Anca Dimitriu, 2003. "Equity Indexing: Conitegration and Stock Price Dispersion: A Regime Switiching Approach to market Efficiency," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2003-02, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    18. Robert C. Merton, 2006. "Paul Samuelson and Financial Economics," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 50(2), pages 9-31, October.
    19. Butt, Prof. Khursheed A & Pandow, Bilal Ahmad, 2013. "An analysis into the Stock Selectivity skill of Indian Fund Managers," MPRA Paper 83500, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2013.
    20. Alagidede, Paul & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2009. "Modelling stock returns in Africa's emerging equity markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 18(1-2), pages 1-11, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Demand elasticity; Allen’s geometric mean arc elasticity; Arithmetic mean arc elasticity; Harmonic mean arc elasticity; JEL; D01; C13;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:kap:atlecj:v:40:y:2012:i:2:p:161-171. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.