Riassunto analitico
This study focuses on the EASI demand system, an important instrument for the policy evaluation and the analysis of consumer choices. It has been developed by Lewbel and Pendakur and is an implicit Marshallian demand system (EASI means Exact Affine Stone Index), combining desirable features of different demand system and allowing to estimate consumer budget shares as functions of total financial resources, in this case total household expenditure. More advanced respect the previous generation of demand systems, it is similar to the Almost Ideal Demand System because the budget shares are linear in parameters given real expenditures but, unlike the Aids model, the EASI demand functions may have any rank and the derived Engel curves are unrestricted. It is a very flexible demand system, and allows also for unobserved preference heterogeneity. This demand system is estimated on the Survey of household consumption of the ISTAT, specifically the time-series 2005-2010, with an organisation of the total expenditure into 9 expenditure categories. In 2011 the Italian government has decided to increase the ordinary rate of the Italian VAT, and another increase is scheduled in 2013. These reforms are meant to provide revenue to cover part of the public debt; however, total consumptions expenditure may suffer for this policy, and the structure of demand, combined with the adverse economic context, cannot ensure to realize the forecasted tax revenue. The thesis proposes an analysis of possible changes in the consumption choices derived from the increase in VAT rates. The work is divided into three parts. In the first, I introduce the theoretical context and the legislative Italian framework, in the second the reference model and the static analysis of the structure of household consumptions are presented. The last part contains the results of the estimation, with the Engel curves for the categories analysed, their semi-elasticities and a welfare analysis.
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