| Sumario: | On the whole, the evidence suggests that, during periods when both purchase expectations and consumer sentiment can be measured with reasonable precision, the anticipatory model is virtually a perfect substitute for a fully specified objective model, and that as good results can be achieved with a simple two-variable anticipations model as with a much more complex model with a fully specified lag structure. In effect, survey measurements of purchase expectations combined with systematic changes in consumer sentiment seem able to replace the influence of income and all the adjustment lags in a complex objective model, although it does not appear that the anticipatory variables reflect the influence on purchases of movements in relative prices of durables-possibly because these are largely unforeseen. The evidence is markedly less convincing during periods when purchase expectations are measured with relatively large sampling errors. Here a significant part of the objective model continues to warrant inclusion in a consumer demand model, and the simple anticipatory model falls considerably short of the fully specified objective model in explanatory power. One clear-cut need for additional research lies in the influence of relative prices on purchase decisions in the context of the model which uses anticipatory variables as the major determinant of desired stock. While most of the evidence seems to suggest that the anticipations variables need to be augmented with a relative price measure, the coefficients of the price variables are erratic and the specification can undoubtedly be improved.
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