Purchasing power

About: Purchasing power is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36866 citations. The topic is also known as: adjusted for inflation.

Willingness to Pay for Renewable Energy: Implications for UK Green Tariff Offerings

Abstract: Although financial support for renewable electricity sources has existed via the non-fossil fuel obligation since 1990, the UK ‘green power’ market is still in its infancy. This paper looks at attitudes to tariffs for ‘green power’ in light of the proposed phase-out of the non-fossil fuel obligation. The hypothesis tested was the consumers’ willingness to pay for electricity generated from renewable energy sources and to see if this was related to income and attitude. Data for analysis were taken from replies to a questionnaire sent to an energy-aware sub-population of Leicester which were analysed by a variety of statistical tests. Results of multiple regression analysis indicated that whether someone was willing to pay more was significantly correlated with attitude, experience (whether they had visited an environmental centre) and the purchasing power placed on £5. This finding has implications for the methods by which support for green tariffs can be increased. Education and raising people’s awareness through experience should be able to change attitudes and so increase their willingness to pay.

Financial behavior and problems among college students in Malaysia: research and education implication

Abstract: For a majority of students, university attendance is the first time they have experienced financial independence without a parent's supervision. With the expansion of educational services in Malaysia, university or college students have become one of the important consumer market segments, for two reasons. First, this group has expanded purchasing power, with easily available educational loans. Second, this student segment of the population has better potential earnings than any other segment of the population. There has been limited study on financial behavior and problems among Malaysians, especially college students, since the concern over the role of young consumers is relatively new.

The Redistributional Effects of Inflation

Abstract: HOW important is it to avoid a moderate, creeping inflation? When nearly full employment has been reached, should continued pressure for higher employment be applied even at the cost of moderate inflationary results? If moderate inflationary pressures exist, what repressive measures are justified to offset these pressures? In spite of widespread agreement on the general objectives of monetary-fiscal policy, we have little organized information on the effects of moderate inflation on different groups in periods of substantially full employment. We need to know more in detail about these effects in order to make reasoned judgments as to how hard we should fight against such inflation and what particular types of repressive policies are best to use. Most major American groups appear to be against inflation. President Eisenhower and ex-President Truman, the C.I.O. and the A.F. of L., the National Association of Manufacturers and the Committee for Economic Development, all have stressed the importance of preserving the purchasing power of the American dollar. Avoidance of mass unemployment and depression seems definitely the first objective of governmental monetary-fiscal policy, but avoidance of inflation appears to come not far behind. Yet the reasons why these diverse groups oppose inflation, if we are to judge by the statements of their leaders, are many, and often muddled. Nor is there any clear consensus among economists as to who gains and who loses from inflation. The most common statements we have found by leading economists 1 fall into two groups: lead-lag propositions, notably that wages lag behind profits in inflation, while interest and rents lag still further, reflecting varying degrees of upward price flexibility; and debtor-creditor propositions, notably that debtors gain at the expense of creditors in inflation. The present investigation suggests that these lead-lag propositions about inflation are questionable, if not wrong, as applied to the type of inflation in the United States since I939. And while there has indeed been a mass debtorcreditor inflation-induced transfer of purchasing power in the United States since I939, the pattern of the transfer has been complex. Business firms, often thought to be major debtors in the American economy, have not been major gainers from inflation on debtor account. This exploratory paper is concerned primarily with the redistributional effects of the recent "moderate" American inflation on current incomes and on wealth. It does not consider directly the effect inflation may have on aggregate output and employment, although the findings may be helpful in analyzing this question. The following sections include: (I) a brief statement of our approach in investigating the problem; (II) some evidence concerning the effect of inflation on the distribution of income by economic function; (III) an analysis of the transfer of wealth by inflation; and (IV and V) brief consideration of inflation's effects on different classes of households and on nonfinancial corporations, respectively. For those already familiar with the behavior of shares of the national income over the years considered, the later sections of the paper will be of primary interest.

On the Economic Vulnerability of Low Income Countries (

Abstract: Summary(**) This paper examines the relevance of the economic vulnerability concept for low income countries, a topic of recent concern in several international bodies. It first considers some conceptual clarifications and a method to build internationally comparable indicators. Three factors of vulnerability are distinguished: shocks, exposure and resilience or capacity to react (the first two ones being more structural, the third one more related to policy). To measure the two main kinds of shocks (natural and external), proposed proxies are respectively the instability of agricultural production and the instability of the purchasing power of exports, while the (smallness of) the population size can be used as a proxy for (structural) exposure. To aggregate the various possible indicators in a composite index of (structural) economic vulnerability, weights can be drawn from their estimated impact on growth. Then selected issues related to the impact of vulnerability on growth are considered: "primary" instabilities (climate, terms of trade, political troubles) are found to slow growth, more by their effect on the total factor productivity growth than on the rate of investment, to do so through « intermediate » instabilities (of the rate of investment and of the real rate of exchange), and in agricultural economies through the impact at the farmer level. Besides its negative effects on growth, vulnerability is assumed to increase aid effectiveness: the more the recipient country is vulnerable the more aid contributes to growth. Implications are drawn for aid allocation and aid design.

Crude Oil Prices and the USD/EUR Exchange Rate

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of changes in the U.S. dollar/euro exchange rate on crude oil prices. The negative correlation of these two variables is ascribed to five possible channels: on the supply side, the purchasing power of oil export revenues and on the demand side, local prices in non-U.S. dollar regions, investments in crude oil-related asset markets, the monetary policy regime in oil-exporting countries and the efficiency of the currency market. We give evidence that using information on the U.S. dollar/euro exchange rate (and its determinants) significantly improves oil price forecasts. We discuss the possible implications these results might suggest with regard to the stabilization of oil prices or the adjustment of global imbalances.