Disaggregated Import Demand Functions: Further Results

A recent article in this Journal presented estimates of U.S. import-demand functions disaggregated by commodity groups and supplying countries [2]. In it, references were made to an unpublished paper which I had previously completed on the same subject, and in view of the interest generated by the estimates, it is useful to make them public. My estimates differ from those of Price and Thornblade in that they disaggregate U.S. imports only by commodity and not by country of origin. On the other hand, estimates of import-demand elasticities are supplied also for countries other than the U.S. Because the methodology used is roughly similar to the one used by Price and Thornblade, only a short account will be given. The basic estimating equation is the following import-demand function: