[R-pkgs] New package for microeconomics: micEcon

[Arne Henningsen]

Dear all,

I have uploaded a new package called micEcon (version 0.1-3) to CRAN 
(an early version of this package has been already presented at useR! 2004).
It contains tools for microeconomic analysis and microeconomic modeling.
These are for instance:

- tools for demand analysis with the 'Almost Ideal Demand System' (AIDS): 
e.g. econometric estimation, calculation of price and income/expenditure 
elasticities, checking for theoretical consistency

- tools for production/firm analysis with the 'Symmetric Normalized 
Quadratic' (SNQ) profit function: e.g. econometric estimation, calculation of 
price elasticities and shadow prices, imposing convexity

- tools for quadratic and translog functions, e.g. econometric estimation, 
calculation of Hessians and derivatives

- functions to write input files for and read output files of Tim Coelli's 
(1996) program "Frontier 4.1" (http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/cepa/ 
software.htm). In this way R can use "Frontier 4.1" to perform stochastic 
frontier analysis.

- a function to perform a two-step Heckman ("heckit") estimation to correct 
for non-random sample selection

- functions to calculate "Laspeyres", "Paasche" or "Fisher" price and quantity 
indices


I have checked most of the functions by comparing their results with values 
published in the literature or obtained by other software. However, I cannot 
guarantee that they return correct results in all possible cases. So please 
check these functions (results, code) and send me bug reports or patches.
You are also invited to provide further functions, e.g. tools for other 
functional forms.

Best regards,
Arne


-- 
Arne Henningsen
Department of Agricultural Economics
University of Kiel
Olshausenstr. 40
D-24098 Kiel (Germany)
Tel: +49-431-880 4445
Fax: +49-431-880 1397
ahenningsen at agric-econ.uni-kiel.de
http://www.uni-kiel.de/agrarpol/ahenningsen/