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This paper studies how the durability of assets affects financing. We show that more durable assets require larger down payments making them harder to finance, because durability affects the price of assets and hence the overall financing need more than their collateral value. Durability affects technology adoption, the choice between new and used capital, and the rent versus buy decision. Constrained firms invest in less durable assets and buy used assets. More durable assets are more likely to be rented. Economies with weak legal enforcement invest more in less durable, otherwise dominated assets and are net importers of used assets. (JEL D25, G31, G32, O31)

While most analyses of economic impacts of population growth have been equivocal, this article describes a new perspective from which the effects are strongly negative. The economies and diseconomies of population size are largely circumstantial and empirically inconsistent, but those of growth rate are intrinsic and consistent. These impacts are not apparent on income and per capita GDP, but on costs. The article estimates these costs using the logic of calculus rather than marginal accounting. Specifically, the cost of maintaining per capita capacity of durable assets, including infrastructure, equipment and skilled personnel, is increased by population growth by a factor proportional to the working lifespan of the asset class.

AbstractRecent research in investments has focused almost exclusively on financial assets such as corporate stocks. Although durable assets constitute an important part of investors' holdings, little effort has been made to explore their role in individuals' investments decisions and on assets pricing. This paper establishes results concerning the role of durable assets in the determination of optimum portfolio choices. The paper explores the effect of consumption considerations related to the service flows generated by durable assets on optimum portfolio considerations and asset prices. The main result is tied to the existence, or lack thereof, of efficient rental markets. In the absence of rental markets (or with restrictions on renting), investors' portfolio choices are not independent of consumption considerations as they are assumed to be in the standard CAPM. Individuals may thus hold different portfolios, and prices reflect the owner's inability to trade consumption flows. Under perfect market assumptions with unrestricted rental markets, optimum portfolio choices are undistinguishable from those implied by the standard CAPM in the sense that they are mean‐variance efficient and identical for all individuals. Consumption is adjusted by trading service flows in the rental market. Prices, and the price of risk, however, reflect the existence of durable assets service flows as well as the risks involved in trading these flows in the rental market. In the model, risky rental income is introduced by uncertain rental costs. Equilibrium rental rates, an important part of the return expected from holding durable assets, are determined in the context of the mean‐variance framework as a function of return and undiversifiable risk.

This research originated on the premise that if the response of various tax bases to changes in tax rates is different, local governments can minimize stress on tax bases by placing differential levels of reliance on these tax bases. Therefore, the objective of this research was to estimate and evaluate short-run and long-run, own- and cross-rate elasticities with respect to the following tax bases: real property (commercial, agricultural, and residential), personal property, and machinery and tools. The analytical model was based on demand theory, and a modified linear approximate Almost Ideal Demand System was used to estimate the elasticities. For the estimation of the long-run elasticities, a partial adjustment model was introduced to the demand system. Data covered 36 counties from Virginia, and covered the period 1981-1985. The results indicated that in the short-run, the value of commercial property had a negative elastic response, while agricultural property had a positive inelastic response. Machinery and tools and residential property values were not significantly affected, but personal property indicated a negative inelastic response for changes in tax rates. The long-run results indicated that elasticity figures become more elastic for commercial property, agricultural property, and personal property while for machinery and tools there was a significant inelastic negative response. With reference to cross-rate elasticities, in the short-run, machinery and tools depicted a complementary relationship with all the other tax bases except residential property. Tax rate changes of commercial property had a substitution relationship with agricultural property. In the long-run, however, machinery and tools were significantly impacted only on tax rate changes on personal property. Changes in the tax rate on machinery and tools had a significant complimentary impact on personal property and commercial property. Agricultural property had a significant substitution effect with respect to all the other tax bases except personal property. Hence, the results indicate that different tax bases respond differently to tax rate changes, which local governments can utilize to maintain or increase tax revenues while reducing the tax burden on tax bases which are very sensitive to tax rate changes. ; Ph. D. ; incomplete_metadata

The empirical evidence on rational inattention lags the theoretical developments: micro evidence on one of the most immediate consequences of observation costs––the infrequent observation of state variables––is not available in standard datasets. We contribute to filling the gap using new household surveys. To match these data we modify existing models, shifting the focus from nondurable to durable consumption. The model features both observation and transaction costs and implies a mixture of time-dependent and state-dependent rules. Numerical simulations explain the frequencies of trading and observation of the median investor with small observation costs and larger transaction costs. (JEL D12, D14, E21, G11)

The primary data were collected from 927 Dalit woman labour households belonging to all the three geographical regions of Punjab (India) to analyse the asset structure of these households. The study revealed that a Dalit woman labour household had assets worth ₹128,750.98. Out of the total value of assets, 90.81% were durable assets and the remaining 9.19% were livestock assets. All the respondent households were found landless. The ratio of debt to household assets was found to be 0.41 which indicates that 41% of the household assets would be needed to pay off their current debt. More than 70% of the total value of durable assets was swallowed only by the dwelling house. Most of the durable items in these households were found useless, old and broken. Actually, the relatively rich households of the village used to give them these already used items in order to seek their cheap or free labour.

THE DEMAND FOR CAPITAL IS NOT SYSTEMATICALLY RELATED TO EITHER THE LEVEL OR THE RATE OF CHANGE OF THE EFFECTIVE INCOME TAX RATES ON CORPORATE CAPITAL ASSETS. RISING INFLATION HAS RAISED THE USER COST OF CAPITAL FOR DURABLE ASSETS RELATIVE TO THAT FOR SHORT-LIVED ASSETS. THE LEVEL AND PATTERNS OF INVESTMENT INCENTIVES PROBABLY WILL CONTINUE TO VARY WITH THE INFLATION RATE.