Continuous measurements of discharge from a horizontal acoustic Doppler current profiler in a tidal river

Acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) can be mounted horizontally at a river bank, yielding single-depth horizontal array observations of velocity across the river. This paper presents a semideterministic, semistochastic method to obtain continuous measurements of discharge from horizontal ADCP (HADCP) data in a tidal river. In the deterministic part, single-depth velocity data are converted to specific discharge by applying the law of the wall, which requires knowledge of local values of the bed roughness length (z0). A new filtration technique was developed to infer cross-river profiles of z0 from moving boat ADCP measurements. Width-averaged values of z0 were shown to be predominantly constant in time but differed between ebb and flood. In the stochastic part of the method, specific discharge was converted to total discharge on the basis of a model that accounts for the time lag between flow variation in the central part of the river and flow variation near the banks. Model coefficients were derived using moving boat ADCP data. The consistency of mutually independent discharge estimates from HADCP measurements was investigated to validate the method, analyzing river discharge and tidal discharge separately. Inaccuracy of the method is attributed primarily to mechanisms controlling transverse exchange of momentum, which produce temporal variation in the discharge distribution over the cross section. Specifically, development of river dunes may influence the portion of the discharge concentrated within the range of the HADC

The Revealed Preference Approach to Collective Consumption Behavior: Nonparametric Testing and Sharing Rule Recovery (Revised version of CentER DP 2007-73)

We present a nonparametric 'revealed preference' methodology for empiri- cally analyzing collective consumption behavior. First, we introduce an integer programming (IP) methodology for testing data consistency with collective con- sumption models that account for publicly as well as privately consumed goods. This IP methodology can include information on 'assignable quantities' for pri- vate goods. Next, we show that the IP methodology allows for recovering the personalized (Lindahl) prices for the public goods and the personalized quan- tities for the private goods. In turn, this implies recovery of the sharing rule (i.e. personalized income share levels). Numerical examples and an empirical application demonstrate the practical usefulness of the methodology.collective model;revealed preferences;data consistency tests;re- covery;integer programming;sharing rule

Analyzing Cost Efficient Production Behavior Under Economies of Scope: A Nonparametric Methodology

In designing a production model for firms that generate multiple outputs, we take as a starting point that such multi-output production refers to economies of scope, which in turn originate from joint input use and input externalities. We provide a nonparametric characterization of cost efficient behavior under these conditions, and subsequently institute necessary and sufficient conditions for data consistency with such efficient behavior that only include observed firm demand and supply data.We illustrate our methodology by examining the cost efficiency of research programs in Economics and Business Management faculties of Dutch universities.This application shows that the proposed methodology may entail robust conclusions regarding cost efficiency differences between universities within specific specialization areas, even when using shadow prices to evaluate the different inputs.production behavior;multi-product firms;input externalities;joint input use;economies of scope;nonparametric tests

Married with Children: A Collective Labor Supply Model with Detailed Time Use and Intrahousehold Expenditure Information

We propose a collective labor supply model with household production that generalizes an original model of Blundell, Chiappori and Meghir (2005). In our model, adults' individual preferences do not only depend on own leisure and individual private consumption of market goods. They also depend on the con- sumption of domestic goods, which are produced by combining goods bought at the market with individuals' time. We apply our model to new and unique data on Dutch couples with children. The data contains detailed information about the spouses' time use and the intrahousehold allocation of all expendi- tures. Our application uses a novel estimation strategy that builds upon the familiar two-stage allocation representation of the collective model. We obtain interesting (and plausible) empirical results. Spouses' preferences depend on the consumption of domestically produced goods (including children's welfare). Next, Pareto weights depend on variables like the individual wages and the share in the households nonlabor income. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, we do not find evidence that mothers care more for their children than fathers.collective model;labor supply;time use;public goods;household production

Economic Well-Being and Poverty Among the Elderly: An Analysis Based on a Collective Consumption Model

We apply the collective consumption model of Browning, Chiappori and Lew- bel (2006) to analyse economic well-being and poverty among the elderly. The model focuses on individual preferences, a consumption technology that captures the economies of scale of living in a couple, and a sharing rule that governs the intra-household allocation of resources. The model is applied to a time series of Dutch consumption expenditure surveys. Our empirical results indicate substan- tial economies of scale and a wife's share that is increasing in total expenditures. We further calculated poverty rates by means of the collective consumption model. Collective poverty rates of widows and widowers turn out to be slightly lower than traditional ones based on a standard equivalence scale. Poverty among women (men) in elderly couples, however, seems to be heavily underestimated (overesti- mated) by the traditional approach. Finally, we analysed the impact of becoming a widow(er). Based on cross-sectional evidence, we find that the drop (increase) in material well-being following the husband's death is substantial for women in high (low) expenditure couples. For men, the picture is reversed.collective model;intra-household allocation;indifference scales;economies of scale;poverty

An Afriat Theorem for the Collective Model of Household Consumption

We provide a nonparametric 'revealed preference' characterization of rational household behavior in terms of the collective consumption model, while accounting for general (possibly non-convex) individual preferences. We establish a Collective Axiom of Revealed Preference (CARP), which provides a necessary and su¢ cient condition for data consistency with collective rationality. Our main result takes the form of a 'collective' version of the Afriat Theorem for rational behavior in terms of the unitary model. This theorem has some interesting implications. With only a finite set of observations, the nature of consumption externalities (positive or negative) in the intra-household allocation process is non-testable. The same non-testability conclusion holds for privateness (with or without externalities) or publicness of consumption. By contrast, concavity of individual utility functions (representing convex preferences) turns out to be testable. In addition, monotonicity is testable for the model that assumes all household consumption is public.Collective model;consumption;Pareto efficiency;revealed preferences;Afriat theorem;Collective Axiom of Revealed Preferences

Opening the Black Box of Intra-Household Decision-Making: Theory and Non-Parametric Empirical Tests of General Collective Consumption Models

We non-parametrically test a general collective consumption model with public consumption and externalities inside the household.We further propose a novel approach to model special cases of the general collective model.These special cases include alternative restrictions on the 'sharing rule' that applies to each household, and which defines the distribution of the household budget over the household members.A limiting case is the unitary model.Our application uses data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS); the panel structure of this data set allows non-parametric testing of the behavioral models without relying on preference homogeneity assumptions across similar individuals.This application includes test results but also a power analysis for different specifications of the collective consumption model.Our main findings are that the most general collective model, together with a large class of special but still fairly general cases, cannot be rejected by the data, while other restricted versions of the general model, including the unitary alternative, are rejected.Since these tests are entirely non-parametric, this provides strong evidence in favor of models focusing on intra-household decisionmaking.collective household models;intra-household allocation;revealed pref- erences;non-parametric analysis