Correction to my last paragraph: I meant to say, "I
don't know whether or not there has ever been a static
market demand curve for anything that sloped up..."
Barkley
On Mon, 23 Sep 1996 11:33:39 -0700 (PDT) "Rosser Jr, John
Barkley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Doug's example of the stock market (and there are lots
> of other markets where dynamically we see people buying
> more of something when the price rises and selling when it
> falls, e.g. real estate, antiques, stamps, baseball cards,
> currencies, etc.) is simply a matter of the demand curve
> shifting outward with a change in the expectation regarding
> future prices. It could coinide easily with the static
> demand curve sloping downward, which is defined in ceteris
> paribus terms with expectations being one of the ceteris
> being held paribus.
> I don't whether or not there has ever been a market
> demand curve for anything that sloped down, although,
> again, there appears to exist evidence for it at the
> individual level, at least for kerosene in Appalachia.
> Barkley Rosser
> On Mon, 23 Sep 1996 05:15:10 -0700 (PDT) Terrence Mc
> Donough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> > Barkeley writes:
> > > T. McDonough is probably right about the original <br>
> > >supposed example of Irish potatoes (see his article). But <br>
> > >that hardly means that there is no empirical evidence of <br>
> > >there EVER having been any Giffen goods anywhere. I am <br>
> > >aware of a study by a colleague of mine, Anthony Bopp, from <br>
> > >several years ago that claimed that among some very poor <br>
> > >consumers in the US at certain periods, kerosene was <br>
> > >actually a Giffen good.
> >
> > While this could be true for some individual consumers, it seems to
> > me to be highly unlikely that the market demand curve for kerosene
> > could have been upward sloping.
> >
> > > But the point is that we do understand circumstances <br>
> > >under which a good COULD be a Giffen good. It is not an a <br>
> > >priori impossibility. That Irish potatoes (or bread) were <br>
> > >not, does not therefore mean there have never been any <br>
> > >Giffen goods.<br>
> >
> > I have done a bit of a literature search on this and could turn up no
> > historical examples. Experimental economics with rats has shown that
> > by constraining their budgets and raising the price of unpleasant
> > foodstuffs you can get rats to consume more of the inferior
> > alternative to avoid starvation.
> >
> > Treacy writes
> >
> > >Years ago an Indian friend of mine claimed that Giffin effects <br>
> > >were evident in India in the 1944 famine. The higher the price of <br>
> > >grain in urban areas the smaller the supply that came in from the<br>
> > >country side. The higher income effects made it possible for the<br>
> > >reservation demand for food to be met and still met your payments<br>
> > >to the money lenders. <br>
> >
> > This is a supply side effect and while the results may look like
> > Giffen phenomena, it does not indicate an upward sloping demand
> > curve.
> >
> > The stocks suggestion is closer though strictly Giffen phenomena must
> > be explained by the dominance of negative income effects over
> > substitution effects.
> >
> > Terry McDonough
> >
> >
>
> --
> Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
--
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
