Household Commodity Demand and Demographics in the Netherlands: A Micro-Economic Analysis

We investigate the effects of demographics, household expenditure and female employment on the allocation of household expenditure to consumer goods. For this purpose we estimate an Almost Ideal Demand System based on Dutch micro data. We find that interactions between household expenditure and demographics are of significant importance in explaining the allocation to consumer goods. As a consequence, consumer goods such as housing and clothing change with demographic characteristics from luxuries to necessities. Furthermore, this implies that budget and price-elasticities cannot be consistently estimated from aggregated data and that equivalence scales are not identified from budget survey data alone. We reject weak separability of consumer goods from female employment. A couple with an employed spouse has a smaller budget share for housing and personal care and a larger budget share for education, recreation & transport and clothing compared to a couple with a non-employed spouse.demand systems;consumption;demographics

Earnings Capacity and Labour Market Participation

We analyze models for individuals' labour market state.We distinguish between full-time and part-time work, but also between various types of economic inactivity, i.e. unemployment, disability, early retirement and working in the household.We consider the impact on the state probabilities of individual attributes, with emphasis on earnings capacity.We take account of the problem that only earnings of workers are observed, and of the potential endogeneity of earnings.We generalize the multinomial logit model, allowing for unobserved heterogeneity.Moreover, we allow for non-linearities due to, for example, minimum wages.Using micro-data from the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel, we look at static models and compare results for various years.Finally, we also look at dynamic models, in which the transition probabilities from employment into various inactivity states are modelled, conditional on job characteristics.labour participation;incomes;labour models

Household commodity demand and demographics in The Netherlands:A microeconometric analysis

We investigate the effects of demographics, household expenditure and female employment on the allocation of household expenditure to consumer goods. For this purpose we estimate an Almost Ideal Demand System based on Dutch micro data. We find that interactions between household expenditure and demographics are of significant importance in explaining the allocation to consumer goods. As a consequence, consumer goods such as housing and clothing change with demographic characteristics from luxuries to necessities. Furthermore, this implies that budget and price-elasticities cannot be consistently estimated from aggregated data and that equivalence scales are not identified from budget survey data alone. We reject weak separability of consumer goods from female employment. A couple with an employed spouse has a smaller budget share for housing and personal care and a larger budget share for education, recreation & transport and clothing compared to a couple with a non-employed spouse.

Earnings Capacity and Labour Market Participation

We analyze models for individuals' labour market state.We distinguish between full-time and part-time work, but also between various types of economic inactivity, i.e. unemployment, disability, early retirement and working in the household.We consider the impact on the state probabilities of individual attributes, with emphasis on earnings capacity.We take account of the problem that only earnings of workers are observed, and of the potential endogeneity of earnings.We generalize the multinomial logit model, allowing for unobserved heterogeneity.Moreover, we allow for non-linearities due to, for example, minimum wages.Using micro-data from the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel, we look at static models and compare results for various years.Finally, we also look at dynamic models, in which the transition probabilities from employment into various inactivity states are modelled, conditional on job characteristics.