Alan L. Gustman, Thomas L. Steinmeier, A Disaggregated, Structural Analysis of Retirement by Race, Difficulty of Work and Health, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Aug., 1986), pp. 509-513

Auditing, Sampling, Substantive test, Sample size

A measure of microeconomic disequilibrium for households facing both budget and quantity constraints is estimated from East data. Using a new specification, the Flexible-Cobb-Douglas utility function, the parameters of a German direct utility function are estimated from West family budgets. It is estimated that an average East family in 1977 would have been willing to give up 13% of its total expenditure in order to attain its demands at official prices.

[This paper develops a model of labor supply for married women which takes into account both the joint decision on participation and hours, and the nonlinear shape of the budget constraint due to taxation. The model can explain the absence of observations of the tax kink by assuming the existence of optimization errors in addition to errors capturing taste variation. The estimates of the model, which are obtained with British micro data, suggest that the overall wage elasticity is about 2 and that participation is more responsive to wages than hours of work.]

This paper highlights an issue not previously addressed in portfolio balance modelling: the impact of assetspecific expected capital gains on the composition of the household wealth portfolio. We extend the Brainard-Tobin portfolio choice model to incorporate the distinction between expected and unexpected capital gains and estimate two versions of the model. While our specification is more appealing on a theoretical basis, we were unable to distinguish clearly between the ex ante and ex post models given currently available data.

Abstract Reviews the book "Intermediate Accounting," by Jan R. Williams, Keith G. Stanga and William W. Holder.