IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jae/japmet/v15y2000i4p355-366.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incomplete information and the time series behaviour of consumption

Author

Listed:
  • David Demery

    (Department of Economics, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1TN, UK)

  • Nigel W. Duck

    (Department of Economics, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1TN, UK)

Abstract

Pischke (1995) uses both microeconomic and macroeconomic US data to test the idea that, within an otherwise standard PIH framework, ignorance by agents of aggregate labour income can account for the observed degree of excess smoothness and sensitivity in consumption. His tests involve only the second moments of aggregate consumption and labour income. In this paper our main aim is to identify and test the restrictions his model implies for aggregate consumption dynamics, using US quarterly data over the period 1959-1996, but our framework allows us also to test an earlier, related model of Goodfriend (1992). We find that both models can be formally rejected: ignorance of aggregate labour income cannot by itself account for aggregate consumption dynamics; some other relaxation of the assumptions of the standard PIH is required. We give an example of one possible such relaxation and present evidence indicating that Pischke's version of imperfect information may, within that framework, have a significant role to play. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • David Demery & Nigel W. Duck, 2000. "Incomplete information and the time series behaviour of consumption," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 355-366.
    • Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:15:y:2000:i:4:p:355-366
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca:80/jae/2000-v15.4/
    File Function: Supporting data files and programs
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campbell, John Y, 1987. "Does Saving Anticipate Declining Labor Income? An Alternative Test of the Permanent Income Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1249-1273, November.
    2. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-987, December.
    3. Pischke, Jorn-Steffen, 1995. "Individual Income, Incomplete Information, and Aggregate Consumption," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 805-840, July.
    4. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Consumption and Liquidity Constraints: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 305-346, April.
    5. John Campbell & Angus Deaton, 1989. "Why is Consumption So Smooth?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(3), pages 357-373.
    6. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin & Marshall, David, 1991. "The Permanent Income Hypothesis Revisited," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 397-423, March.
    7. Hayashi, Fumio & Sims, Christopher A, 1983. "Nearly Efficient Estimation of Time Series Models with Predetermined, but Not Exogenous, Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(3), pages 783-798, May.
    8. Goodfriend, Marvin, 1992. "Information-Aggregation Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 508-519, June.
    9. Deaton, Angus, 1991. "Saving and Liquidity Constraints," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1221-1248, September.
    10. repec:adr:anecst:y:1988:i:9:p:03 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. John Muellbauer, 1988. "Habits, Rationality and Myopia in the Life Cycle Consumption Function," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 9, pages 47-70.
    12. Alan S. Blinder & Angus Deaton, 1985. "The Time Series Consumption Function Revisited," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 16(2), pages 465-521.
    13. Attfield, C. L. F. & Demery, D. & Duck, N. W., 1992. "Partial adjustment and the permanent income hypothesis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1205-1222, August.
    14. Joseph G. Altonji & Aloysius Siow, 1987. "Testing the Response of Consumption to Income Changes with (Noisy) Panel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 293-328.
    15. Cochrane, John H, 1989. "The Sensitivity of Tests of the Intertemporal Allocation of Consumption to Near-Rational Alternatives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 319-337, June.
    16. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1989. "Consumption, Income, and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 185-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Campbell, John Y & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1990. "Permanent Income, Current Income, and Consumption," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(3), pages 265-279, July.
    18. Fumio Hayashi, 1985. "The Permanent Income Hypothesis and Consumption Durability: Analysis Based on Japanese Panel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1083-1113.
    19. Flavin, Marjorie A, 1981. "The Adjustment of Consumption to Changing Expectations about Future Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 974-1009, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huang, Yu-Lieh & Huang, Chao-Hsi & Kuan, Chung-Ming, 2008. "Reexamining the permanent income hypothesis with uncertainty in permanent and transitory innovation states," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1816-1836, December.
    2. Luis Gil-Alana, 2004. "The permanent income hypothesis: A new framework based on fractional integration and cointegration," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 10(3), pages 165-179, October.
    3. Luis A. Gil-Alana & Antonio Moreno & Seonghoon Cho, 2012. "The Deaton paradox in a long memory context with structural breaks," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(25), pages 3309-3322, September.
    4. Lorenzo Pozzi, 2007. "Idiosyncratic Labour Income Risk and Aggregate Consumption: an Unobserved Component Approach," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-069/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Pozzi, Lorenzo, 2006. "Ricardian equivalence under imperfect information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 2009-2026, November.
    6. Demery, David & Duck, Nigel W., 2007. "The theory of rational expectations and the interpretation of macroeconomic data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-18, March.
    7. David Demery & Nigel Duck, 2002. "Optimally Rational Expectations and Macroeconomics," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 02/533, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    8. Pozzi, Lorenzo, 2010. "Idiosyncratic labour income risk and aggregate consumption: An unobserved component approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 169-184, March.
    9. L. Pozzi, 2005. "Income uncertainty and aggregate consumption," Working Paper Research 77, National Bank of Belgium.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ostergaard, C. & Sorensen, B.E. & Yosha, O., 1998. "Permanent Income, Consumption, and Aggregate Constraints: Evidence from US States," Papers 02-98, Tel Aviv.
    3. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    4. Charlotte Ostergaard & Bent E. Serensen & Oved Yosha, 2002. "Consumption and Aggregate Constraints: Evidence from U.S. States and Canadian Provinces," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 634-645, June.
    5. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    6. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption: Saving decisions: Testing the finite horizon model," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    8. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    9. Luis A. Gil-Alana & Antonio Moreno & Seonghoon Cho, 2012. "The Deaton paradox in a long memory context with structural breaks," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(25), pages 3309-3322, September.
    10. repec:pri:wwseco:dp232 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Pischke, Jorn-Steffen, 1995. "Individual Income, Incomplete Information, and Aggregate Consumption," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 805-840, July.
    12. Yulei Luo, 2008. "Consumption Dynamics under Information Processing Constraints," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 366-385, April.
    13. Hahm, Joon-Ho, 1998. "Consumption adjustment to real interest rates: Intertemporal substitution revisited," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 293-320, February.
    14. Daria Pignalosa, 2021. "The Euler Equation Approach: Critical Implications of Recent Developments in the Theory of Intertemporal Choice," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 15(1), pages 1-43, June.
    15. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo, 2004. "Consumption Theory," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, number 23, April.
    16. Abdelhak S. Senhadji, 2000. "How Significant are Departures from Certainty Equivalence? Some Analytical and Empirical Results," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(3), pages 597-617, July.
    17. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.
    18. Gerdie Everaert & Lorenzo Pozzi & Ruben Schoonackers, 2017. "On the Stability of the Excess Sensitivity of Aggregate Consumption Growth in the USA," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 819-840, June.
    19. Attanasio, Orazio P., 1995. "The intertemporal allocation of consumption: theory and evidence," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 39-56, June.
    20. Päivi Kankaanranta, 2006. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle: A Selected Literature Review," Discussion Papers 7, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    21. Pedersen, Karsten N., 1991. "Intertemporal substitution in consumption : evidence for some high- and middle-income countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 641, The World Bank.
    22. Cheng K. Wu, 1997. "New Result in Theory of Consumption: Changes in Savings and Income Growth," Macroeconomics 9706007, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Incomplete information and the time series behaviour of consumption (Journal of Applied Econometrics 2000) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:15:y:2000:i:4:p:355-366. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.