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This page provides examples of how to use the Commodity and Food Elasticities database. Each sample question is followed by the steps necessary to query, view, or download data from the database. Information on the scope of the database, literature sources, the search results, and how to report errors can be found in the Documentation.
Note: This application functions best in Internet Explorer (version 6.0 or later).
Where do I start? I am looking for the price elasticity of cereal in the United States.
If I am just browsing the query results, what do I need to know about the information that is displayed?
What do I do next? How do I print or download the data?
Question: Where do I start? I am looking for the price elasticity of cereal in the United States.
The Demand Elasticities from Literature is the place to start.
Under Step 1, first choose a Country or Commodity using the drop-down list provided for each category. For this example, find and highlight United States in the Country drop-down list. A list of commodities that have elasticities in the database for the United States will be automatically generated. To continue with this example, find and highlight Cereal in the Commodity drop-down list.
Step 2 deals with cross-price elasticities that are in the database for the chosen commodity (in this case, cereal). After choosing a country-commodity pair in Step 1, a list of cross commodities will be automatically generated. If the cross-commodity box is empty, there are no cross-price elasticities in the database for the selected country-commodity pair. You may choose multiple cross commodities per search or you may choose none. For this example, select Bread as a cross commodity.
Once you have made your selections, click the Submit button.
A new page will display results from the query. The screen shot below shows 2 of the 13 records in the database for our example: United States, Cereal, and Bread.
Question: If I am just browsing the query results, what do I need to know about the information that is displayed?
The results page contains two tables of information. The first, large table contains a number of different columns.
| Column |
Column title |
Contents |
| 1 |
Get Statistic |
A check box for each record. Uncheck the box and then click on 'getStatistic' in the column heading to remove a record from the results table. |
| 2 |
Author |
Short author description. Click the name in the box; a popup window will
open with the full article/report citation. |
| 3 |
Source Table |
The specific table in the article/report containing the elasticity(ies). |
| 4 |
Publication Date |
The date the article/report was published or presented. |
| 5 |
Data Period |
The time frame of the analysis. |
| 6-8 |
Model, Demand, Property |
One-word description of the model used, its functional form, and its
theoretical properties. |
| 9+* |
* |
Elasticity numbers from the queried literature. |
* The number of columns will depend on the individual query, but can potentially include expenditure, income, own-price, and cross-price elasticities.
The columns with titles in blue (Author, Publication Date, Data Period, and all the elasticities) can be sorted. Click on the title, and the data in the table will be sorted alphabetically for Author, from oldest to most recent for Publication Date and Data Period, or numerically for the elasticities.
Below the large table is a second smaller table with basic statistical information about the elasticities in the delivered records. For example, here are the statistics for the 13 records for United States, Cereal, and Bread.
Question: What do I do next? How do I print or download the data?
You have reviewed your query results and know the records you are interested in. You can either print or download the data:
- Uncheck the item(s) you DO NOT want in Column 1 and click on "GetStatistic" to remove them from the list.
- Then click either of the two buttons in the upper right-hand corner above the large table:
- Download This Data—to download the data in Microsoft Excel
 or
- Print this Table (PDF)—to print the table from Adobe Acrobat.
In the Excel file, the Author column contains the full citation for the article/report. In the PDF version, the Author column is the same as it is on screen.
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