The minflex-Laurent translog flexible functional form (Q1083990)

The author's minflex-Laurent generalized Leontief model [see ''The flexible Laurent demand system'', Proc. 1982 Am. Econ. Assoc. Meet., Business Econ. Stat. Sect., 82-89 (1982)] was produced from a special case of a second-order Laurent series expansion in the square roots. In this paper we produce a minflex-Laurent translog flexible functional form by the analogous expansion in the logarithms. We prove that the model's regular region always grows monotonically as real income increases. As a result, the model is especially well-suited for use with income- trended time series data. We also prove that the model satisfies \textit{W. E. Diewert}'s definition of a flexible functional form [see e.g., Frontiers quantitat. Econ., Vol. II, Toronto 1972, 106-205 (1974; Zbl 0331.90051)] and is no more deeply parameterized than is necessary to satisfy the flexibility criterion.