In the autumn of 1961 Jan Salomon ('Mars') Cramer was appointed to the newly established chair of econometrics at the University of Amsterdam. This volume is published to commemorate this event. It is well-known how much econometrics has developed over the period under consideration, the 25 years that elapsed between 1961 and 1986. This is specifically true for the areas in which Cramer has been actively interested. We mention the theory and measurement of consumer behaviour; money and income; regression, correla­ tion and forecasting. In the present volume this development will be high­ lighted. Sixteen contributions have been sollicited from scholars all over the world who have belonged to the circle of academic friends of Cramer for a shorter or longer part of the period of 25 years. The contributions fall broadly speaking into the four areas mentioned above. Theory and measurement of consumer behaviour is represented by four papers, whereas a fifth paper deals with a related area. Richard Blundell and Costas Meghir devote a paper to the estimation of Engel curves. They apply a discrete choice model to British (individual) data from the Family Expenditure Survey 1981. Their aim is to assess the impact of individual characteristics such as income, demographic structure, location, wages and prices on commodity expenditure.

Inhalt

A. Demand.- 1. Engel curve estimation with individual data.- 2. Estimating and testing an almost ideal demand system.- 3. Job separations and job matching.- 4. Estimating the intertemporal elasticity of substitution for consumption from household budget data.- 5. Associated with an income distribution and a demand system is a multidimensional expenditure distribution.- B. Money.- 6. The theory and measurement of cash payments: a case study of the Netherlands.- 7. The denomination-specific demand for currency in a high-inflation setting: the Israeli experience.- 8. In Search of 100 billion dollars.- 9. Forecasting the daily balance of the Dutch Giro.- C. Income.- 10. Inductive analysis from empirical income distributions.- 11. Economic growth and the size distribution of income; a longitudinal analysis.- D. Methodology.- 12. The coefficient of determination for regression without a constant term.- 13. The coefficient of determination revisited.- 14. Modelling multivariate stochastic time series for prediction: another look at the Lydia Pinkham Data.- 15. On the rationale for and scope of regression models in econometrics.- 16. The classical econometric model.- Bibliography of Jan Salomon Cramer.- Name Index.