TY  - JOUR
AU  - Smith,V. Kerry
AU  - Evans,Mary F.
AU  - Banzhaf,H. Spencer
AU  - Poulos,Christine
TI  - Can Weak Substitution be Rehabilitated?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13903
PY  - 2008
Y2  - March 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13903
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13903.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
V. Kerry Smith
Department of Economics
W.P. Carey School of Business
P.O. Box  879801
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-9801
Tel: 480/727-9812
Fax: 480/965-0748
E-Mail: kerry.smith@asu.edu

Mary F. Evans
The Robert Day School
  of Economics and Finance
Claremont McKenna College
500 E. Ninth Street
Claremont, CA 91711
E-Mail: Mary.Evans@ClaremontMcKenna.edu

H. Spencer Banzhaf
Department of Economics
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3992
Atlanta, GA 30302
Tel: 404/413-0252
Fax: 404/413-0248
E-Mail: hsbanzhaf@gsu.edu

Christine Poulos
RTI International
Public Health and Environment Division
Research Triangle Park, N.C.
E-Mail: cpoulos@rti.org
AB  - This paper develops a graphical analysis and an analytical model that demonstrate how weak substitution can be used for non-market valuation.  Both weak complementarity and weak substitution can be evaluated as restrictions that allow quantity or quality changes in non-market goods to be described as price changes that yield equivalent changes in individual well being. They are Hicksian equivalents in that the price changes yield the same utility changes as would the quantity or quality changes.  After discussion of several potential applications of weak substitution, the paper develops the parallel between the restriction and recent strategies from modeling differentiated goods.
ER  -