NONPARAMETRIC DEMAND ANALYSIS OF UK PERSONAL SECTOR DECISIONS ON CONSUMPTION, LEISURE, AND MONETARY ASSETS - A REAPPRAISAL

This paper utilizes a new data set to test for utility maximizing beha vior and weakly separable subutility functions in the context of a uti lity function comprising durables, nondurables, services, leisure, and monetary asset holdings for the U.K. personal sector. All the data se ts analyzed demonstrated consistency with respect to utility maximizin g behavior. The weak separability results prove to be relatively invar iant to the degree of aggregation over goods but highly sensitive to t he assumption made regarding the representative consumer. Per-househol d scaling of the data produced a utility function that is weakly separ able in goods, services and leisure, and in monetary assets.