Consumption and Risk Sharing Over the Life Cycle

Consumption and Risk Sharing Over the Life Cycle PDF Author: Kjetil Storesletten
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aging
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
A striking feature of U.S. data on income and consumption is that inequality increases with age. Using both panel data and an equilibrium life cycle model, we argue that this is informative for understanding the importance and the characteristics of idiosyncratic labor market risk. We find that uncertainty distributed throughout the working years accounts for 40 percent of life time uncertainty, with the remainder being realized prior to entering the labor market. We estimate that the shocks received over the life cycle contain a highly persistent component, with an autocorrelation coefficient between 0.98 and unity. The joint behavior of earnings and consumption inequality, interpreted using our model, adds to the body of evidence suggesting that labor market risks are imperfectly pooled and that a precautionary motive is an important aspect of U.S. savings behavior. The restrictions imposed by general equilibrium theory play an important role in arriving at each of these conclusions

Consumption and Risk Sharing Over the Life Cycle

Consumption and Risk Sharing Over the Life Cycle PDF Author: Kjetil Storesletten
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aging
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
A striking feature of U.S. data on income and consumption is that inequality increases with age. Using both panel data and an equilibrium life cycle model, we argue that this is informative for understanding the importance and the characteristics of idiosyncratic labor market risk. We find that uncertainty distributed throughout the working years accounts for 40 percent of life time uncertainty, with the remainder being realized prior to entering the labor market. We estimate that the shocks received over the life cycle contain a highly persistent component, with an autocorrelation coefficient between 0.98 and unity. The joint behavior of earnings and consumption inequality, interpreted using our model, adds to the body of evidence suggesting that labor market risks are imperfectly pooled and that a precautionary motive is an important aspect of U.S. savings behavior. The restrictions imposed by general equilibrium theory play an important role in arriving at each of these conclusions

Consumption and Risk Sharing Over the Life Cycle

Consumption and Risk Sharing Over the Life Cycle PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. offers an abstract of the November 2000 working paper entitled "Consumption and Risk Sharing Over the Life Cycle," written by Kjetil Storesletten, Chris I. Telmer, and Amir Yaro. The full text may be purchased online. This paper examines the joint behavior of earnings and consumption using an equilibrium life cycle model. The authors find that uncertainty distributed throughout the working years accounts for 40 percent of life time uncertainty, with the remainder being realized prior to entering the labor market.

Cross-country Consumption Risk Sharing, a Long-run Perspective

Cross-country Consumption Risk Sharing, a Long-run Perspective PDF Author: Mr.Zhaogang Qiao
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451982089
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
This paper estimates an empirical nonstationary panel regression model that tests long-run consumption risk sharing across a sample of OECD and emerging market (EM) countries. This is in contrast to the existing literature on consumption risk sharing, which is mainly about risks at business cycle frequency. Since our methodology focuses on identifying cointegrating relationships while allowing for arbitrary short-run dynamics, we can obtain a consistent estimate of long-run risk sharing while disregarding any short-run nuisance factors. Our results show that long-run risk sharing in OECD countries increased more than that in EM countries during the past two decades.

Risky Habits

Risky Habits PDF Author: Jeffrey C. Fuhrer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Capital market
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
Standard international economic models with life cycle/permanent income consumption behavior predict that international portfolio diversification leads to high bilateral consumption correlations. Thus international consumption correlations have been empirically estimated as a test of international portfolio diversification and risk sharing. In this paper we investigate the international consumption correlations generated by a more general model which incorporates habit formation in consumption. We show that, in the presence of common interest rate movements, habit formation itself can generate positive international consumption correlations even in the absence of any international risk sharing. Empirical evidence presented in this paper suggests habit formation characterizes consumption behavior among most of the G-7 countries. Thus, the extent of international portfolio diversification may be even lower than that suggested by previous research which studied international consumption correlations.

Social Security and Inequality Over the Life Cycle

Social Security and Inequality Over the Life Cycle PDF Author: Angus Deaton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
This paper examines the consequences of social security reform for the inequality of consumption across individuals. The idea is that inequality is at least in part the result of individual risk in earnings or asset returns, the effects of which accumulate over time to increase inequality within groups of people as they age. Institutions such as social security, that share risk across individuals, will moderate the transmission of individual risk into inequality. We examine how different social security systems, with different degrees of risk sharing, affect consumption inequality. We do so within the framework of the permanent income hypothesis, and also using richer models of consumption that incorporate precautionary saving motives and borrowing restrictions. Our results indicate that systems in which there is less sharing of earnings risk such as systems of individual accounts produce higher consumption inequality both before and after retirement. However, differences across individuals in the rate of return on assets (including social security assets held in individual accounts) produce only modest additional effects on inequality

International Consumption Risk Sharing

International Consumption Risk Sharing PDF Author: Fabio Canova
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description


Unequal We Stand

Unequal We Stand PDF Author: Jonathan Heathcote
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437934919
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 61

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Book Description
The authors conducted a systematic empirical study of cross-sectional inequality in the U.S., integrating data from various surveys. The authors follow the mapping suggested by the household budget constraint from individual wages to individual earnings, to household earnings, to disposable income, and, ultimately, to consumption and wealth. They document a continuous and sizable increase in wage inequality over the sample period. Changes in the distribution of hours worked sharpen the rise in earnings inequality before 1982, but mitigate its increase thereafter. Taxes and transfers compress the level of income inequality, especially at the bottom of the distribution, but have little effect on the overall trend. Charts and tables. This is a print-on-demand publication; it is not an original.

Consumption Over the Life Cycle

Consumption Over the Life Cycle PDF Author: Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
This paper employs a synthetic cohort technique and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to construct average age-profiles of consumption and income over the working lives of typical households across different education and occupation groups. Using these profiles, we estimate a structural model of optimal life-cycle consumption expenditures in the presence of realistic labor income uncertainty. The model fits the profiles quite well. In addition to providing tight estimates of the discount rate and risk aversion, we find that consumer behavior changes strikingly over the life-cycle. Young consumers behave as buffer-stock agents. Around age 40, the typical household starts accumulating liquid assets for retirement, and its behavior mimics more closely that of a certainty equivalent consumer. This change in behavior is mostly driven by the life-cycle profile of expected income. Our methodology provides a natural decomposition of saving into its precautionary and retirement components.

Heterogenous Life-cycle Profiles, Income Risk and Consumption Inequality

Heterogenous Life-cycle Profiles, Income Risk and Consumption Inequality PDF Author: Giorgio E. Primiceri
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Consumption Over the Life Cycle and Over the Business Cycle

Consumption Over the Life Cycle and Over the Business Cycle PDF Author: Orazio P. Attanasio
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumption (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description
The main aim of this paper is to assess the validity of the life cycle model of consumption. In particular, we address an issue that has recently received much attention, especially in the macroeconomic literature: that of "excess sensitivity" of consumption growth to income growth. We do this using a time series of cross sections and a novel and flexible parameterization of preferences. The former allows us to' address aggregation issues directly, while with the latter we can allow both the discount factor and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution eis to be affected by various observable variables and lifetime wealth. The main findings can be summarized as follows: (i) the excess sensitivity of consumption growth to labor income disappears when we control for demographic variables. This is true both at life cycle and business cycle frequencies. (ii) estimation of a flexible specification of preferences indicates that the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is a function of several variables, including the level of consumption. The eis increases with the level of consumption, as expected. (iii) the variables that change the eis are also important in explaining why we observe excess sensitivity over the business cycle. (iv) we are able to reconcile our results with those reported both in the macro and micro literature. (v) in our specification the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is not very well determined. This result, however, should be taken with care, as we have not made an effort to construct a 'preferred' specification, which would probably include additional controls for labor supply behavior. The evidence presented shows that the life cycle model cannot be easily dismissed. Indeed, we believe that the model does a good job at representing consumption behavior both over the life cycle and over the business cycle.