Economics Letters 6 (I 980) 295-299 North-Holland Publishing Company 295 CONSUMPTION AND LEISURE IN AUSTRIA Klaus F. ZIMMERMANN iJnrversi(v of Mannheim, D-6800 Mannheim, W. Germany Received 19 January 198 1 Bohm’s (1980) data set on consumption and leisure in Austria is used to estimate the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) of Deaton and Muellbauer (1980). Average income elasticities and average Slutzky price elasticities are calculated and the patterns of consump- tion and leisure in Austria are described. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLK 1. Introduction Deaton and Muellbauer (1980) recently suggested a new model for analysing consumer demand systems. As the authors (p. 312) report, ‘the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) gives an arbitrary first-order approximation to any demand system; it satisfies the axioms of choice exactly; it aggregates perfectly over consumers without invoking parallel linear Engel curves; it has a functional form which is consistent with known household-budget data; it is simple to estimate, largely avoiding the need for non-linear estimation; and it can be used to test the restrictions of homogeneity and symmetry through linear restrictions on fixed parameters’. We use this convincing model for investigating the patterns of consumption and leisure in Austria. 2. Theoretical model Let us write p, and qi for the price and quantity consumed of good i, E = IX:= ,piqi for total expenditure, w, =piqi/E for the i th budget share and u for utility. Then, the AIDS expenditure function is logE(%P)=~, +&Jogp, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLK k (1) 0165-1765/81/0000-0000/$02.50 0 North-Holland