Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/47284 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Memorandum No. 2009,26
Publisher: 
University of Oslo, Department of Economics, Oslo
Abstract: 
Dynamic modeling of demand for goods whose cumulated stocks enter an intertemporal utility function as latent variables, is discussed. The issues include: how represent addiction, how handle unobserved expectations and changing plans, how deal with 'dynamic inconsistency'? Arguments are put forth to give all optimizing conditions attention, not only those in which all variables are observable. If the latter, fairly common, 'limited information-reduced dimension' strategy is pursued, problems are shown to arise in attempting to identify coefficients of the preference structure and to test for addictive stocks. Examples, based on quadratic utility functions, illustrate the main points and challenge the validity of testing the 'rational addiction' hypothesis, by using linear, single-equation autoregressive models, as suggested by Becker, Grossman, and Murphy (1994) and adopted in several following studies.
Subjects: 
Life-cycle model
Addiction
Identification
Latent stocks
Perfect foresight
Rational expectations
Dynamic inconsistency
JEL: 
C32
C51
D91
I12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
527.71 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.