Income and Price Elasticity: Econometric Model of Paper Product

Abstract

This thesis is about income and price elasticity of paper products. It is a panel data model which combines time-series data and cross-section data. The pooled data are based on twenty-three major forest consumed counties in 20 years. These annual data are from 1990-2009. The paper products are categorized in three kinds: newspaper, printing and writing paper, other paper and paperboard. In these 20 years, the price indices are deflated by the Consumer Price Index. Demand equations are estimated by country using ordinary least squares with Newey-West standard errors. The data are then aggregated into a panel and two-way fixed and random effects models are estimated. The estimated income and price elasticities prove robust regardless of which pooling technique or estimation method is used.