Pooling Surveys in the Estimation of Income and Price Elasticities: An Application to Tunisian Households
22 Pages Posted: 20 Nov 2014
Date Written: 2003
Abstract
This paper presents a methodological extension of Deaton’s (1990) model for estimating price elasticities, by pooling Tunisian data from several surveys to improve the inter-cluster variability of unit values which is one of the key elements used in the derivation of these elasticities. Since the surveys cover a relatively long period, possible structural changes in consumption behaviour occurring over time are accounted for by postulating that certain response coefficients of the basic model vary from one survey to the other. The own price and cross price elasticities calculated using appropriate estimates of the extended model are satisfactory both from the economic point of view of their sign and the statistical point of view of their significance and superior to those obtained using a single survey.
Keywords: pooling cross-sections, consumer demand system, unit value, price elasticity
JEL Classification: D12
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