“There is no situation which combines respectability with lightness of responsibility and labour so happily as the office of a Professor." John Henry Newman.
Email: ian.crawford_at_economics.ox.ac.uk
Recent Publications:
Teaching:
Undergraduate Lectures:
Some Current Research
Never mind the hyperbolics: revealed preference analysis of time-inconsistent behaviour (with Laura Blow)
We investigate the necessary and sufficient nonparametric conditions for the quasi-hyperbolic
consumer (naive and sophisticated varieties) in a perfect-foresight environment. These turn out to be quite tractable. We investigate the performance of this model
compared to the standard exponential discounting model using consumer panel data.
paper
The Age-period-cohort Problem: set identification and point identification (with Martin Browning and Marike Knoef)
Various methods have been used to overcome the point identification problem inherent in the linear age-period-cohort model. This paper
presents a set-identification result for the model and then considers the use of the maximum-entropy principle as a vehicle
for achieving point identification. We present two substantive applications (US female mortality data and and UK female labor force
participation) and compare the results from our approach to some of the solutions in the literature.
paper.
A zip file containing a STATA ado file and a help file written by Cormac O'Dea is available to download.
Copy the ado file (apc.ado) and the help file (apc.sthlp) into your personal ado file directory. If you do not know where this is type 'sysdir' in STATA. The path listed next to 'PERSONAL' will be the location of this folder.
Once copied in the command and help file can be called from within STATA in the same way as any other command can. The help file is called by typing 'help apc'.
A PDF copy of the help file is available here
Gorman Revisited: Nonparametric conditions for exact linear aggregation (with the Leuven 3 - Laurens Cherchye, Bram De Rock, Frederic Vermeulen)
In the tradition of Afriat (1967), Diewert (1973) and Varian (1982), we provide a nonparametric, revealed preference characterisation of
the conditions for exact aggregation. Our results are simple and complement those of Gorman (1953, 1961), Samuelson (1956) and others. They can also
be applied to data very readily and without the need for auxilliary parametric or statistical assumptions. We investigate the application of
our characterisation by means of a balanced microdata panel survey. Our findings provide robust evidence against the existence of a
representative consumer, at least for our data.
paper
Testing for Time-Separability (with Matthew Polisson)
Rae (1834) was perhaps the first to propose the idea that utility from current consumption
can be affected by past consumption. The notion that knowledge of future
consumption can affect present decision making goes back as far as Jevons (1871).
In simple terms, having eaten an Italian meal last night may in
uence your trade-off
today between Italian and Indian food, as may the knoweldge that you are going
out to an Italian restaurant tomorrow night. Both nonseparable approaches have
delivered meaningful insights into consumer behaviour, and both have been shown to be able to explain
empirical consumption `puzzles' where the time separable benchmark falls short.
This paper compares the revealed preference conditions for these
models. We show that they are nonparametrically equivalent: data on prices, interest rates, and consumption pro les do not allow the econometrician
to distinguish between them. This may go some way towards explaining why both models
can provide rationalisations for the same behaviour.
paper
University Lecturer. Reader. Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UQ
Fellow. New College, Holywell Street, Oxford OX1 3BN
Research Fellow. Institute for Fiscal Studies, Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE.
Phone: +44(0)1865 281441
“Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is
original is not good.” Attr. Samuel Johnson
Articles
"How Many Types are There?", Economic Journal, 123 (2013), 77-95, (with Krishna Pendakur)
"How Demanding is the Revealed Preference Approach to Demand?", American Economic Review, 101 (2011), 2782–2795, (with T. Beatty)
"Welfare Rankings from Multivariate Data, a Nonparametric Approach", Journal of Public Economics 95 (2011) 247–252, (with G. Anderson and A. Leicester)
"Habits Revealed" Review of Economic Studies, (2010) 77(4), pp. 1382-1402
"Best Nonparametric Bounds on Demand Responses" Econometrica, (2008) 76(6), pp. 1227–1262 (with R. Blundell and M. Browning)
"Testing for a Reference Consumer in International Comparisons of Living Standards" Amercian Economic Review (2008) 98(4), pp. 1731–32, (with J. Peter Neary)
"Revealed Preference Methods for the Consumer Characteristics Model" Review of Economic Studies, (2008) vol 75, pp. 371-389, (with L. Blow and M. Browning)
"Improving Bounds on Demand Curves " International Economic Review, (2007) Vol. 48, No. 4, November, (with R. Blundell and M. Browning).
"The RPI and the cost-of-living index: testing for consistency between theory and practice", Fiscal Studies, (2004), vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 79-91 (with I. Image)
"Nonparametric Engel Curves and Revealed Preference", Econometrica, (2003) vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 205-240, (with R. Blundell and M. Browning)
"Estimation of household demand systems with theoretically compatible Engel curve and unit value specifications", Journal of Econometrics, (2003) vol. 114, pp. 221-241, (with F. Laisney and I. Preston).
"The cost of living with the RPI: Substitution bias in the UK Retail Prices Index", Economic Journal, (2001), 111, F311-334 (with L. Blow)
Book Chapters
“The revealed preference approach to demand” in Quantifying consumer preferences: estimating demand
systems - Contributions to economic analysis Daniel Slottje (ed.), Emerald Press. 2009, with L. Cherchye
L, B. De Rock, F. Vermeulen F.
“Efficiency Analysis and the Lower Convex Hull Approach”, in Quantitative Approaches to Multidimensional
Poverty Measurement, Nanak Kakwani and Jacques Silber (ed.’s) Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, with
G. Anderson and A. Leicester
“Value Added Tax and Excises” in The Mirrlees Review: Dimensions of Tax Design, S. Adam, T. Besley
and R. Blundell (ed.’s), Oxford University Press, 2009, with M. Keen and S. Smith
“The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students,
but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases,
to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students
in all cases to behave toward him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability.” Adam Smith
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“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” Albert Einstein