Semiparametric Estimation of Consumption Based Equivalence Scales: The Case of Germany

Ralf Wilke

No 04-53, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Consumption based equivalence scales are estimated by applying the extended partially linear model (EPLM) to the 1998 Income and Consumption Survey (EVS) of Germany. The chosen flexible semiparametric specification is able to capture a large variety of functional forms of household expenditure shares; it yields root-N-consistent parameter estimates and is consistent with consumer theory. The model specification seems to be appropriate for many demographic groups of the survey population. The estimated equivalence scales are mostly lower than the expert equivalence scales of the German social benefits system and the OECD scales. The large standard errors of the estimates indicate that there is still unexplained noise in the data even after constructing homogenous data segments for the estimations.

Keywords: semiparametric estimation; wild bootstrapping; equivalence scales; social benefits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C31 D12 H53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/24062/1/dp0453.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Semi-parametric estimation of consumption-based equivalence scales: the case of Germany (2006)
Journal Article: Semi‐parametric estimation of consumption‐based equivalence scales: the case of Germany (2006)
Working Paper: Semiparametric Estimation of Consumption Based Equivalence Scales: The Case of Germany (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:2191

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().