Empirical regularities in distributions of individual consumption expenditure

Martin Hohnisch; Sabine Pittnauer; Manisha Chakrabarty

doi:10.1142/S0129183102003292

Empirical regularities in distributions of individual consumption expenditure

Martin Hohnisch^*
, Sabine Pittnauer
, Manisha Chakrabarty

^*Corresponding author for this work

Publication: Scientific journal › Journal article › peer-review

Abstract

We empirically investigate distributions of individual consumption expenditure for four commodity categories conditional on fixed income levels. The data stems from the Family Expenditure Survey carried out annually in the United Kingdom. We use graphical techniques to test for normality and lognormality of these distributions. While prevailing economic theory does not predict any structure for these distributions, we find that in at least three commodity categories individual consumption expenditure conditional on a fixed income level is lognormally distributed.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	541-549
Number of pages	9
Journal	International Journal of Modern Physics C
Volume	13
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1142/S0129183102003292
Publication status	Published - 2002
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors thank J. Arns for extracting the data from the Family Expenditure Survey. We are indebted to W. Hildenbrand and D. Stauffer for many insightful discussions. S. Pittnauer gratefully acknowledges nancial support from the Graduiertenförderung, University of Bonn.

Keywords

Consumption
Economic heterogeneity
Econophysics
General Equilibrium Theory
Lognormal distribution

Access to Document

10.1142/S0129183102003292

Cite this

@article{905fabb4899143f48a2363f65706c493,

title = "Empirical regularities in distributions of individual consumption expenditure",

abstract = "We empirically investigate distributions of individual consumption expenditure for four commodity categories conditional on fixed income levels. The data stems from the Family Expenditure Survey carried out annually in the United Kingdom. We use graphical techniques to test for normality and lognormality of these distributions. While prevailing economic theory does not predict any structure for these distributions, we find that in at least three commodity categories individual consumption expenditure conditional on a fixed income level is lognormally distributed.",

keywords = "Consumption, Economic heterogeneity, Econophysics, General Equilibrium Theory, Lognormal distribution",

author = "Martin Hohnisch and Sabine Pittnauer and Manisha Chakrabarty",

note = "Funding Information: The authors thank J. Arns for extracting the data from the Family Expenditure Survey. We are indebted to W. Hildenbrand and D. Stauffer for many insightful discussions. S. Pittnauer gratefully acknowledges nancial support from the Graduiertenf{\"o}rderung, University of Bonn.",

year = "2002",

doi = "10.1142/S0129183102003292",

language = "English",

volume = "13",

pages = "541--549",

journal = "International Journal of Modern Physics C",

issn = "0129-1831",

publisher = "World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd",

number = "4",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Empirical regularities in distributions of individual consumption expenditure

AU - Hohnisch, Martin

AU - Pittnauer, Sabine

AU - Chakrabarty, Manisha

N1 - Funding Information: The authors thank J. Arns for extracting the data from the Family Expenditure Survey. We are indebted to W. Hildenbrand and D. Stauffer for many insightful discussions. S. Pittnauer gratefully acknowledges nancial support from the Graduiertenförderung, University of Bonn.

PY - 2002

Y1 - 2002

N2 - We empirically investigate distributions of individual consumption expenditure for four commodity categories conditional on fixed income levels. The data stems from the Family Expenditure Survey carried out annually in the United Kingdom. We use graphical techniques to test for normality and lognormality of these distributions. While prevailing economic theory does not predict any structure for these distributions, we find that in at least three commodity categories individual consumption expenditure conditional on a fixed income level is lognormally distributed.

AB - We empirically investigate distributions of individual consumption expenditure for four commodity categories conditional on fixed income levels. The data stems from the Family Expenditure Survey carried out annually in the United Kingdom. We use graphical techniques to test for normality and lognormality of these distributions. While prevailing economic theory does not predict any structure for these distributions, we find that in at least three commodity categories individual consumption expenditure conditional on a fixed income level is lognormally distributed.

KW - Consumption

KW - Economic heterogeneity

KW - Econophysics

KW - General Equilibrium Theory

KW - Lognormal distribution

U2 - 10.1142/S0129183102003292

DO - 10.1142/S0129183102003292

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:0036344137

SN - 0129-1831

VL - 13

SP - 541

EP - 549

JO - International Journal of Modern Physics C

JF - International Journal of Modern Physics C

IS - 4

ER -