Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/88259 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Papers on Economics and Evolution No. 1216
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Abstract: 
This paper presents a formal model in which differential satiation dynamics of various consumer needs translate into long-run changes of consumer behavior when income rises. In the model individuals allocate their income to the consumption categories proportional to need deprivation states corresponding to the consumption categories, a decision making process called matching. The paper compares the Engel curves obtained from matching with the Engel curves obtained from traditional constrained maximization. The latter allocation is used as a normative benchmark of the behavior that leads to the highest utility. While superficially both ways to allocate income generate similar results, matching allows to explain some empirical regularities that maximization cannot account for. For example, only by using matching one can reconstruct that income elasticities for food tend to decrease with rising income. Moreover, the comparison of both ways to allocate income shows that the deviations from rational behavior are greater for relatively poor individuals than for richer individuals so that the inequality in terms of welfare can be stronger than the inequality in terms of income. Innovations influencing the satiation patterns can strengthen this effect.
Subjects: 
Consumer theory
Engel curves
Engel's law
Structural change
JEL: 
B52
C51
D03
D11
D63
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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