IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/econom/v147y2008i2p275-281.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A nonparametric test of weak separability and consumer preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Fleissig, Adrian R.
  • Whitney, Gerald A.

Abstract

Two stochastic nonparametric procedures are developed to evaluate the significance of violations of weak separability. When the data have measurement error, we show that the necessary and sufficient weak separability conditions of Varian [Varian, H., 1983. Nonparametric tests of consumer behavior. Review of Economic Studies 50, 99-110] must also satisfy the Afriat inequalities. The tests detect weak separability with high probability for weakly separable data. In addition, the procedures correctly reject weak separability for both nonseparable and random utility simulated data sets. The tests also fail to reject weak separability for a monetary and consumption data set which suggests that measurement error may be the source of the observed violations.

Suggested Citation

  • Fleissig, Adrian R. & Whitney, Gerald A., 2008. "A nonparametric test of weak separability and consumer preferences," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 275-281, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:econom:v:147:y:2008:i:2:p:275-281
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-4076(08)00143-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Varian, Hal R, 1982. "The Nonparametric Approach to Demand Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 945-973, July.
    2. Fleissig, Adrian R. & Whitney, Gerald A., 2005. "Testing for the Significance of Violations of Afriat's Inequalities," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 355-362, July.
    3. William A. Barnett & Douglas Fisher & Apostolos Serletis, 2006. "Consumer Theory and the Demand for Money," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Money And The Economy, chapter 1, pages 3-43, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. William A. Barnett, 2000. "New Indices of Money Supply and the Flexible Laurent Demand System," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: The Theory of Monetary Aggregation, pages 325-359, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Swofford, James L., 2000. "Microeconomic foundations of an optimal currency area," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 121-128, December.
    6. Leigh Drake, 1997. "Nonparametric Demand Analysis Of U.K. Personal Sector Decisions On Consumption, Leisure, And Monetary Assets: A Reappraisal," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 679-683, November.
    7. Belongia, Michael T & Chalfant, James A, 1989. "The Changing Empirical Definition of Money: Some Estimates from a Model of the Demand for Money Substitutes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 387-397, April.
    8. Gallant, A. Ronald, 1981. "On the bias in flexible functional forms and an essentially unbiased form : The fourier flexible form," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 211-245, February.
    9. Gross, John, 1995. "Testing Data for Consistency with Revealed Preference," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(4), pages 701-710, November.
    10. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1975. "Transcendental Logarithmic Utility Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 367-383, June.
    11. Philippe de Peretti, 2005. "Testing The Significance Of The Departures From Utility Maximization," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00646801, HAL.
    12. William A. Barnett, 2000. "Economic Monetary Aggregates: An Application of Index Number and Aggregation Theory," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: The Theory of Monetary Aggregation, pages 11-48, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    13. Michael T. Belongia, 2000. "Consequences of Money Stock Mismeasurement: Evidence from Three Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Michael T. Belongia & Jane M. Binner (ed.), Divisia Monetary Aggregates, chapter 13, pages 292-312, Palgrave Macmillan.
    14. Terrell, Dek, 1996. "Incorporating Monotonicity and Concavity Conditions in Flexible Functional Forms," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(2), pages 179-194, March-Apr.
    15. Diewert, W. E. & Parkan, C., 1985. "Tests for the consistency of consumer data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 127-147.
    16. Swofford, James L & Whitney, Gerald A, 1988. "Comparison of Nonparametric Tests of Weak Separability for Annual and Quarterly Data on Consumption, Leisure, and Money," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 6(2), pages 241-246, April.
    17. Drake, Leigh, 1996. "Relative Prices in the UK Personal Sector Money Demand Function," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1209-1226, September.
    18. William A. Barnett, 2000. "The Optimal Level of Monetary Aggregation," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: The Theory of Monetary Aggregation, pages 125-149, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    19. Barnett, William A. & Jonas, Andrew B., 1983. "The Muntz-Szatz demand system : An application of a globally well behaved series expansion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 337-342.
    20. Russell Davidson & James MacKinnon, 2000. "Bootstrap tests: how many bootstraps?," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 55-68.
    21. Fisher, Douglas, 1992. "Money-Demand Variability: A Demand-Systems Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(2), pages 143-151, April.
    22. Swofford, James L & Whitney, Gerald A, 1987. "Nonparametric Tests of Utility Maximization and Weak Separability for Consumption, Leisure and Money," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 458-464, August.
    23. Fleissig, Adrian R, 1997. "The Consumer Consumption Conundrum: An Explanation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(2), pages 177-192, May.
    24. Drake, Leigh & Chrystal, K Alec, 1997. "Personal Sector Money Demand in the UK," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 188-206, April.
    25. Famulari, Melissa, 1995. "A Household-Based, Nonparametric Test of Demand Theory," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(2), pages 372-382, May.
    26. Serletis, Apostolos & Shahmoradi, Asghar, 2007. "Flexible Functional Forms, Curvature Conditions, And The Demand For Assets," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 455-486, September.
    27. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R, 1980. "Global Properties of Flexible Functional Forms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 422-432, June.
    28. William A. Barnett & Seungmook Choi, 2004. "A Monte Carlo Study of Tests of Blockwise Weak Separability," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Functional Structure and Approximation in Econometrics, pages 257-287, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    29. McMillan, Melville L & Amoako-Tuffour, Joe, 1988. "An Examination of Preferences for Local Public Sector Outputs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(1), pages 45-54, February.
    30. Serletis, Apostolos, 1987. "On the Demand for Money in the United States," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 249-255.
    31. Chalfant, James A & Alston, Julian M, 1988. "Accounting for Changes in Tastes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 391-410, April.
    32. Fleissig, Adrian R. & Hall, Alastair R. & Seater, John J., 2000. "Garp, Separability, And The Representative Agent," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 324-342, September.
    33. Swofford, James L. & Whitney, Gerald A., 1994. "A revealed preference test for weakly separable utility maximization with incomplete adjustment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 235-249.
    34. W. E. Diewert, 1973. "Afriat and Revealed Preference Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 419-425.
    35. Philippe de Peretti, 2005. "Testing The Significance Of The Departures From Utility Maximization," Post-Print halshs-00646801, HAL.
    36. de PERETTI, PHILIPPE, 2005. "Testing The Significance Of The Departures From Utility Maximization," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 372-397, June.
    37. Jones, Barry E. & Dutkowsky, Donald H. & Elger, Thomas, 2005. "Sweep programs and optimal monetary aggregation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 483-508, February.
    38. Michael T. Belongia & Jane M. Binner (ed.), 2000. "Divisia Monetary Aggregates," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-28823-2, December.
    39. Varian, Hal R., 1985. "Non-parametric analysis of optimizing behavior with measurement error," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 445-458.
    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. John Quah, 2014. "A test for weakly separable preferences," Economics Series Working Papers 708, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Ian Crawford & Bram De Rock, 2014. "Empirical Revealed Preference," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 503-524, August.
    3. El-Shagi, Makram & Kelly, Logan, 2019. "What can we learn from country-level liquidity in the EMU?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 75-83.
    4. Serletis, Apostolos & Xu, Libo, 2021. "Consumption, Leisure, And Money," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(6), pages 1412-1441, September.
    5. Laurens CHERCHYE & Ian CRAWFORD & Bram DE ROCK & Frederic VERMEULEN, 2011. "Aggregation without the aggravation? Nonparametric analysis of the representative consumer," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces11.36, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    6. Smeulders, Bart & Crama, Yves & Spieksma, Frits C.R., 2019. "Revealed preference theory: An algorithmic outlook," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 272(3), pages 803-815.
    7. Hjertstrand, Per & Swofford, James L., 2019. "Revealed preference tests of indirect and homothetic weak separability of financial assets, consumption and leisure," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 108-114.
    8. Zhan, Minghua & Wang, Lijun & Zhan, Shuwei & Lu, Yao, 2023. "Does digital finance change the stability of money demand function? Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    9. Sato, Hideyasu & 佐藤, 秀保, 2020. "Do Large-scale Point-of-sale Data Satisfy the Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preference in Aggregation Using Representative Price Indexes?: A Case Involving Processed Food and Beverages," RCESR Discussion Paper Series DP19-2, Research Center for Economic and Social Risks, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    10. Avner Seror, 2022. "The Priced Survey Methodology," AMSE Working Papers 2224, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    11. Hjertstrand, Per & Jones, Barry E., 2013. "What Do Revealed Preference Axioms Reveal about Elasticities of Demand?," Working Paper Series 972, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    12. Cherchye, Laurens & Demuynck, Thomas & De Rock, Bram & Hjertstrand, Per, 2015. "Revealed preference tests for weak separability: An integer programming approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(1), pages 129-141.
    13. Matthew Polisson, 2018. "A lattice test for additive separability," IFS Working Papers W18/08, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    14. Hjertstrand, Per & Swofford, James L. & Whitney, Gerald A., 2019. "Index Numbers and Revealed Preference Rankings," Working Paper Series 1308, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    15. Matthew Polisson, 2018. "A lattice test for additive separability," IFS Working Papers W18/08, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Laurens Cherchye & Ian Crawford & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2015. "Revealed Preference and Aggregation," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2015-08, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    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. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Consumer preferences and demand systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 210-224, December.
    2. Binner, Jane M. & Bissoondeeal, Rakesh K. & Elger, C. Thomas & Jones, Barry E. & Mullineux, Andrew W., 2009. "Admissible monetary aggregates for the euro area," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 99-114, February.
    3. Drake, Leigh & Fleissig, Adrian R., 2010. "Substitution between monetary assets and consumer goods: New evidence on the monetary transmission mechanism," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2811-2821, November.
    4. Jones, Barry E. & Stracca, Livio, 2006. "Are money and consumption additively separable in the euro area? A non-parametric approach," Working Paper Series 704, European Central Bank.
    5. Bergh , Andreas & Nilsson, Therese, 2008. "Do economic liberalization and globalization increase income inequality?," Working Papers 2008:12, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    6. Ali Jadidzadeh & Apostolos Serletis, 2019. "The Demand for Assets and Optimal Monetary Aggregation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(4), pages 929-952, June.
    7. Ryadh M. Alkhareif & William A. Barnett, 2012. "Divisia Monetary Aggregates for the GCC Countries," International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics, in: Recent Developments in Alternative Finance: Empirical Assessments and Economic Implications, pages 1-37, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    8. Serletis, Apostolos & Rangel-Ruiz, Ricardo, 2005. "Microeconometrics and measurement matters: Some results from monetary economics for Canada," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 307-330, June.
    9. Binner, Jane M. & Chaudhry, Sajid & Kelly, Logan & Swofford, James L., 2018. "“Risky” monetary aggregates for the UK and US," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 127-138.
    10. Barnett, William A. & de Peretti, Philippe, 2009. "Admissible Clustering Of Aggregator Components: A Necessary And Sufficient Stochastic Seminonparametric Test For Weak Separability," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(S2), pages 317-334, September.
    11. Barry E. Jones & Livio Stracca, 2008. "Does Money Matter In The Is Curve? The Case Of The Uk," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 76(s1), pages 58-84, September.
    12. Cherchye, Laurens & Demuynck, Thomas & De Rock, Bram & Hjertstrand, Per, 2015. "Revealed preference tests for weak separability: An integer programming approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(1), pages 129-141.
    13. Jones, Barry E. & Dutkowsky, Donald H. & Elger, Thomas, 2005. "Sweep programs and optimal monetary aggregation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 483-508, February.
    14. Ian Crawford & Bram De Rock, 2014. "Empirical Revealed Preference," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 503-524, August.
    15. Drake, Leigh & Fleissig, Adrian R., 2008. "A Note On The Policy Implications Of Using Divisia Consumption And Monetary Aggregates," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 132-149, February.
    16. Elger, Thomas & Jones, Barry & Edgerton, David & Binner, Jane, 2004. "The Optimal Level of Monetary Aggregation in the UK," Working Papers 2004:7, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 26 Jan 2005.
    17. Smeulders, Bart & Crama, Yves & Spieksma, Frits C.R., 2019. "Revealed preference theory: An algorithmic outlook," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 272(3), pages 803-815.
    18. Douglas Fisher & Adrian R. Fleissig & Apostolos Serletis, 2006. "An Empirical Comparison of Flexible Demand System Functional Forms," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Money And The Economy, chapter 13, pages 247-277, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Paul Oslington, 2012. "General Equilibrium: Theory and Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(282), pages 446-448, September.
    20. Serletis, Apostolos & Xu, Libo, 2021. "Consumption, Leisure, And Money," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(6), pages 1412-1441, September.

    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:econom:v:147:y:2008:i:2:p:275-281. 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: https://www.elsevier.com/locate/jeconom .

    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.