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Requiem For The Representative Consumer? Aggregate Implications Of Microeconomic Consumption Behavior

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Author Info
Christopher Carroll (Johns Hopkins)

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Abstract

Macroeconomists pursuing microfoundations for aggregate consumption have generally adopted one of two approaches: either to model microeconomic consumption behavior carefully and then to aggregate, or to thoroughly understand the behavior of a `representative consumer' in general equilibrium, then to introduce microeconomic risk and heterogeneity. The broad conclusion from the `bottom up' approach has been that precautionary saving and microeconomic heterogeneity can profoundly change behavior (Stephen P. Zeldes (1989); Angus S. Deaton (1991); Christopher D. Carroll (1992)). The broad conclusion from the `top down' approach has been that precautionary saving is of little importance in determining the aggregate capital stock (S. Rao Aiyagari (1994); Per Krusell and Anthony A. Smith (1998)), leading some economists to conclude that heterogeneity is unimportant for macroeconomic purposes. This paper shows that while general equilibrium effects do imply that the aggregate magnitude of precautionary saving is modest, nevertheless when a model with uninsurable idiosyncratic risk is modified so that it can match the key micro facts, it produces behavior very different in important respects from that produced by the representative agent economy. This leads to the conclusion that for many purposes, the representative consumer model should be abandoned in favor of a model which matches key microeconomic facts.

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Paper provided by Society for Computational Economics in its series Computing in Economics and Finance 2000 with number 320.

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Date of creation: 05 Jul 2000
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Handle: RePEc:sce:scecf0:320

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Carroll, Christopher D & Kimball, Miles S, 1996. "On the Concavity of the Consumption Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 981-92, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Attanasio, Orazio & Davis, Steven J, 1996. "Relative Wage Movements and the Distribution of Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1227-62, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Huggett, Mark, 1996. "Wealth distribution in life-cycle economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 469-494, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Jonathan A. Parker, 1999. "The Reaction of Household Consumption to Predictable Changes in Social Security Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 959-973, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 1999. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 7271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Optimal Consumption with Stochastic Income: Deviations from Certainty Equivalence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 104(2), pages 275-98, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Nicholas S. Souleles, 1999. "The Response of Household Consumption to Income Tax Refunds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 947-958, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1990. "Consumption, Income, and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Working Papers 2924, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Christopher D. Carroll, 1992. "The Buffer-Stock Theory of Saving: Some Macroeconomic Evidence," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1992-2), pages 61-156. [Downloadable!]
  10. Laibson, David, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(2), pages 443-77, May.
  11. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 1999. "Intertemporal Choice and Consumption Mobility," CSEF Working Papers 23, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Salerno, Italy. [Downloadable!]
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  13. McCarthy, Jonathan, 1995. "Imperfect insurance and differing propensities to consume across households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 301-327, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Deaton, Angus, 1991. "Saving and Liquidity Constraints," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1221-48, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. repec:fth:harver:1435 is not listed on IDEAS
  16. Robert E. Hall, 1987. "Consumption," NBER Working Papers 2265, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Cochrane, John H, 1991. "A Simple Test of Consumption Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 957-76, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Aiyagari, S Rao, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(3), pages 659-84, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Marcelo Bianconi, 2004. "The Welfare Gains from Stabilization in a Stochastically Growing Economy with Idiosyncratic Shocks and Flexible Labor Supply," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0413, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Olga gorbachev, 2007. "Did Household Consumption Become More Volatile?," ESE Discussion Papers 161, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh. [Downloadable!]
  3. Paivi Kankaanranta, 2006. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle: Theory and Empirical Regularities," Research Reports 118, University of Turku, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  4. Christos Koulovatianos, 2005. "Preferences and the Dynamic Representative Consumer," Vienna Economics Papers 0505, University of Vienna, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Marcelo Bianconi, 2003. "Private Information, Growth and Asset Prices with Stochastic Disturbances," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0301, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. James Feigenbaum, 2005. "Heterogeneity vs Uncertainty in Anticipation of a Borrowing Constraint," Working Papers 230, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2005. [Downloadable!]
  7. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo & Simon Price, . "Financial liberalisation and consumers' expenditure: 'FLIB' re-examined," Bank of England working papers 157, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  8. Andreas Lehnert, 2004. "Housing, consumption, and credit constraints," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-63, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  9. Päivi Kankaanranta, 2006. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle: A Selected Literature Review," Discussion Papers 7, Aboa Centre for Economics. [Downloadable!]
  10. Lilia Maliar & Serguei Maliar, 2003. "Heterogeneity In The Degree Of Quasi-Geometric Discounting: The Distributional Implications," Working Papers. Serie AD 2003-28, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie). [Downloadable!]
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