IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/178.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Testing the Life Cycle Model of Consumption: What Can We Learn From Micro and Macro Data?

Author

Listed:
  • O. Attanasio
  • M. Browning

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the implicaions of the life cyrcle model for consumption and consider the possibility of testing the model using macro and micro data. We conclude that the implications of the model cannot be tested with macro data, whose analysis, however, is useful for forecats. We provide some evidence from US and UK micro datasets which shows that the life cycle model, at a first glance, is not unconsistent with tha data.

Suggested Citation

  • O. Attanasio & M. Browning, 1993. "Testing the Life Cycle Model of Consumption: What Can We Learn From Micro and Macro Data?," Working Papers 178, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:178
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://amsacta.unibo.it/5179/1/178.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 1993. "Consumption Growth, the Interest Rate and Aggregation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 631-649.
    4. Blundell, R. & Browning, M. & Meghir, C., 1989. "A Microeconometric Model Of Intertemporal Substitution And Consumer Demand," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 324, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Attanasio, Orazio P & Browning, Martin, 1995. "Consumption over the Life Cycle and over the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1118-1137, December.
    6. Charles R. Bean, 1986. "The Estimation of "Surprise" Models and the "Surprise" Consumption Function," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(4), pages 497-516.
    7. Robert E. Hall, 1987. "Consumption," NBER Working Papers 2265, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(3), pages 575-609.
    9. 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.
    10. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Life Cycle Consumption and Labor Supply: An Explanation of the Relationship Between Income and Consumption Over the Life Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(1), pages 188-194, March.
    11. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1269-1286, September.
    12. Grossman, Sanford J. & Shiller, Robert J., 1982. "Consumption correlatedness and risk measurement in economies with non-traded assets and heterogeneous information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 195-210, July.
    13. MaCurdy, Thomas E, 1981. "An Empirical Model of Labor Supply in a Life-Cycle Setting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(6), pages 1059-1085, December.
    14. 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.
    15. N. Gregory Mankiw & Julio J. Rotemberg & Lawrence H. Summers, 1985. "Intertemporal Substitution in Macroeconomics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(1), pages 225-251.
    16. Shorrocks, A F, 1975. "The Age-Wealth Relationship: A Cross-Section and Cohort Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 57(2), pages 155-163, May.
    17. Browning, Martin & Deaton, Angus & Irish, Margaret, 1985. "A Profitable Approach to Labor Supply and Commodity Demands over the Life-Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(3), pages 503-543, May.
    18. Blundell, Richard & Pashardes, Panos & Weber, Guglielmo, 1993. "What Do We Learn About Consumer Demand Patterns from Micro Data?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 570-597, June.
    19. Browning, Martin, 1989. "A Nonparametric Test of the Life-Cycle Rational Expectations Hypothesis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(4), pages 979-992, November.
    20. Christopher D. Carroll & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Consumption Growth Parallels Income Growth: Some New Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: National Saving and Economic Performance, pages 305-348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. B. Douglas Bernheim & John B. Shoven, 1991. "National Saving and Economic Performance," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern91-2.
    22. Deaton, Angus, 1991. "Saving and Liquidity Constraints," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1221-1248, September.
    23. John Muellbauer, 1975. "Aggregation, Income Distribution and Consumer Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(4), pages 525-543.
    24. 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.
    25. Moffitt, Robert, 1993. "Identification and estimation of dynamic models with a time series of repeated cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1-2), pages 99-123, September.
    26. Miron, Jeffrey A, 1986. "Seasonal Fluctuations and the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Model of Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(6), pages 1258-1279, December.
    27. Runkle, David E., 1991. "Liquidity constraints and the permanent-income hypothesis : Evidence from panel data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 73-98, February.
    28. Keane, Michael P & Runkle, David E, 1992. "On the Estimation of Panel-Data Models with Serial Correlation When Instruments Are Not Strictly Exogenous," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, January.
    29. Deaton, Angus, 1985. "Panel data from time series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 109-126.
    30. 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.
    31. Hall, Robert E & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1982. "The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 461-481, March.
    32. Jackman, Richard & Sutton, John, 1982. "Imperfect Capital Markets and the Monetarist Black Box: Liquidity Constraints, Inflation and the Asymmetric Effects of Interest Rate Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(365), pages 108-128, March.
    33. Keane, Michael P & Runkle, David E, 1992. "On the Estimation of Panel-Data Models with Serial Correlation When Instruments Are Not Strictly Exogenous: Reply," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(1), pages 26-29, January.
    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. Attanasio, Orazio P & Weber, Guglielmo, 1995. "Is Consumption Growth Consistent with Intertemporal Optimization? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1121-1157, December.
    2. Aurélien Saïdi & Beatrice Cherrier & Pedro Garcia Duarte, 2024. "Household heterogeneity in macroeconomic models : A historical perspective," Post-Print hal-04425385, HAL.
    3. Simon Rottke & Alexander Klos, 2016. "Savings and Consumption When Children Move Out," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(6), pages 2349-2377.
    4. Leonardo Villar & David Forero & Carmen Elisa Flórez & Nadia Puerta & Erika Enríquez & Natalia Valencia-López & Juan Pablo Alzate, 2015. "Ahorro e inversión para la vejez," Informes de Investigación 13897, Fedesarrollo.
    5. Gemma Abio & Ció Patxot & Alexandrina Stoyanova & Raquel Andrés & Guadalupe Souto, 2022. "Lifecycle consumption and household structure: A pseudo-panel approach," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2022/436, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. José M. Labeaga & Rubén Osuna, 2007. "Expenditures at retirement by Spanish households," Working Papers 2007-36, FEDEA.
    7. De Andrés Mosquera, Andrés, 2017. "Los determinantes a largo plazo y su contribución a la tasa de ahorro de los hogares españoles en el período 1985-2016 || Long-term determinants and its contribution to Spanish household saving rate d," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 24(1), pages 292-339, Diciembre.
    8. Cherrier, Beatrice & Duarte, Pedro Garcia & Saïdi, Aurélien, 2023. "Household heterogeneity in macroeconomic models: A historical perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    9. Lei Fang & Anne Hannusch & Pedro Silos, 2019. "Back to Becker: Producing Consumption with Time and Goods," 2019 Meeting Papers 1386, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    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. 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.
    3. Attanasio, Orazio P & Weber, Guglielmo, 1995. "Is Consumption Growth Consistent with Intertemporal Optimization? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1121-1157, December.
    4. Attanasio, Orazio P & Browning, Martin, 1995. "Consumption over the Life Cycle and over the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1118-1137, December.
    5. Julian Thimme, 2017. "Intertemporal Substitution In Consumption: A Literature Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 226-257, February.
    6. 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.
    7. Shin-Ichi Nishiyama, 2011. "The Cross-Euler Equation Approach to testing for the Liquidity Constraint: Evidence from Macro and Micro Data," TERG Discussion Papers 273, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University.
    8. Campbell, John Y. & Cocco, Joao F., 2007. "How do house prices affect consumption? Evidence from micro data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 591-621, April.
    9. Jacobs, Kris, 2000. "Estimating Nonseparable Preference Specifications for Asset Market Participants," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1472, Econometric Society.
    10. Tomas Havranek & Anna Sokolova, 2016. "Do Consumers Really Follow a Rule of Thumb? Three Thousand Estimates from 130 Studies Say "Probably Not"," Working Papers 2016/08, Czech National Bank.
    11. 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.
    12. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. 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.
    15. Hansen, Hermann-Josef, 1996. "Der Einfluß der Zinsen auf den privaten Verbrauch in Deutschland," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1996,03, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    16. Einian, Majid & Nili, Masoud, 2016. "Consumption Smoothing and Borrowing Constraints: Evidence from Household Surveys of Iran," MPRA Paper 72461, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Kris Jacobs, 2001. "Estimating Nonseparable Preference Specifications for Asset Market Participants," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-12, CIRANO.
    18. Ziliak, James P., 1998. "Does the choice of consumption measure matter? An application to the permanent-income hypothesis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 201-216, February.
    19. Pischke, Jorn-Steffen, 1995. "Individual Income, Incomplete Information, and Aggregate Consumption," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 805-840, July.
    20. Cheng K. Wu, 1997. "New Result in Theory of Consumption: Changes in Savings and Income Growth," Macroeconomics 9706007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Orazio Attanasio, 1997. "Consumption and saving behaviour: modelling recent trends," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 23-47, February.

    More about this item

    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:bol:bodewp:178. 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: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.html .

    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.