S. M. Tinic, Institutional Investors and Concentration of Financial Power: Berle and Means Revisted: Discussion, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 36, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty Ninth Annual Meeting American Finance Association, Denver, September 5-7, 1980 (May, 1981), pp. 395-397

Carl M. Gambs, Credit Unions: Theory, Empirical Evidence and Public Regulation: Discussion, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 36, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty Ninth Annual Meeting American Finance Association, Denver, September 5-7, 1980 (May, 1981), pp. 552-554

An Engel curve is derived for the direct and indirect household consumption of oil and, hence, estimating the income elasticity for the demand for oil. Comparison with other studies is difficult as they have, in general, relied on time-series data. However, studies by Houthakker and Taylor (1970) and by Phlips (1972) derive short-run income elasticities close to the estimated value of 0.58 obtained in this study. Two points must be emphasized. First, the income elasticity is a short-run value and, therefore, indicates a lower bound for the long-run elasticity. Second, although this study takes account of both the direct and indirect demand for oil, it does pertain to consumer tastes and production technologies current in the early 1960s. On the latter point, an obvious extension of this study would be to update it using the 1972-73 Consumer Expenditure Survey. 23 references, 2 tables.

The effect of Social Security and private pensions on individual retirement decisions is modeled, relaxing in turn three commonly maintained assumptions—perfect capital markets, actuarial fairness, and certain lifetimes—which together imply that there is no effect. In each case, raising the contribution level can cause systematic changes (of either sign in general) in individual retirement decisions. For Social Security, the effects associated with forced saving and deviations from actuarial fairness probably tend to advance retirement. But those effects that arise solely from the insurance aspect of Social Security and private pensions are ambiguous in sign, owing to the presence of a substitution effect that tends to delay retirement because the insurance benefits can be fully realized only by working longer.