IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eso/journl/v45y2014i4p511-535.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing the Permanent Income Hypothesis for Irish Households, 1994 to 2005

Author

Listed:
  • Petra Gerlach-Kristen

    (Swiss National Bank, Zürich)

Abstract

The Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) states that consumption should depend on long-term income expectations and not on temporary swings in income. This paper uses Irish household data from three Household Budget Surveys between 1994 and 2005 to test the PIH. Households that fail to consume their permanent income may do so because they have no access to credit or because they save, be it for a rainy day, a purchase, bequests, or simply because saving conditions are attractive. We find some evidence for credit constraints, for instance for mortgage households in arrears in the mid-1990s. Furthermore, mortgage households during the housing boom consistently consumed less than predicted by their permanent income, which may be related to planned house purchases or the Special Savings Incentive Account scheme.

Suggested Citation

  • Petra Gerlach-Kristen, 2014. "Testing the Permanent Income Hypothesis for Irish Households, 1994 to 2005," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 45(4), pages 511-535.
    • Handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:45:y:2014:i:4:p:511-535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esr.ie/article/view/228/97
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Lydon, Reamonn & O'Hanlon, Niall, 2012. "Housing Equity Withdrawal, Property Bubbles and Consumption," Research Technical Papers 05/RT/12, Central Bank of Ireland.
    4. Andrew Benito & Haroon Mumtaz, 2006. "Consumption excess sensitivity, liquidity constraints and the collateral role of housing," Bank of England working papers 306, Bank of England.
    5. Slacalek Jiri, 2009. "What Drives Personal Consumption? The Role of Housing and Financial Wealth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-37, October.
    6. John V. Duca & John Muellbauer & Anthony Murphy, 2011. "House Prices and Credit Constraints: Making Sense of the US Experience," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 533-551, May.
    7. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. Benito, Andrew & Mumtaz, Haroon, 2009. "Excess Sensitivity, Liquidity Constraints, And The Collateral Role Of Housing," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 305-326, June.
    10. 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.
    11. Hogan, Vincent & O'Sullivan, Pat, 2007. "Consumption and House Prices in Ireland," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), vol. 2007(3-Autumn), pages 46-61.
    12. Bernanke, Ben, 1985. "Adjustment costs, durables, and aggregate consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 41-68, January.
    13. 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.
    14. Don Walshe & Dermot O’Leary, 2012. "Deleveraging, Banks and Economic Recovery in Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 165-197.
    15. Fumio Hayashi, 1985. "The Effect of Liquidity Constraints on Consumption: A Cross-Sectional Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(1), pages 183-206.
    16. Hayne E. Leland, 1968. "Saving and Uncertainty: The Precautionary Demand for Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 465-473.
    17. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1, May.
    18. Tullio Jappelli, 1990. "Who is Credit Constrained in the U. S. Economy?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 219-234.
    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. Petra Gerlach-Kristen & Rossana Merola, 2019. "Consumption and credit constraints: a model and evidence from Ireland," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 475-503, August.
    2. Kiernan Fiona, 2019. "Public policy failure in healthcare: The effect of salary reduction for new entrant consultants on recruitment in public hospitals," Administration, Sciendo, vol. 67(2), pages 95-112, May.

    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 & 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.
    2. Gerlach, Petra, 2013. "The Effect of Unemployment, Arrears and Negative Equity on Consumption: Ireland in 2009/10," Papers WP457, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    3. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. 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.
    5. Petra Gerlach-Kristen & Rossana Merola, 2019. "Consumption and credit constraints: a model and evidence from Ireland," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 475-503, August.
    6. Baugh, Brian & Ben-David, Itzhak & Park, Hoonsuk, 2013. "Disentangling Financial Constraints, Precautionary Savings, and Myopia: Household Behavior Surrounding Federal Tax Returns," Working Paper Series 2013-20, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    7. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    8. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. 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.
    10. Abel, Andrew B., 1990. "Consumption and investment," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 14, pages 725-778, Elsevier.
    11. Cavalcanti, Carlos B., 1993. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption: An American Investigation for Brazil," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 13(2), November.
    12. Parise, Gerald F., 1994. "Permanent income hypothesis and the cost of adjustment," ISU General Staff Papers 1994010108000012303, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    13. 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.
    14. Takala, Kari, 1995. "The consumption function revisited : an error-correction model for Finnish consumption," Research Discussion Papers 20/1995, Bank of Finland.
    15. Cheng K. Wu, 1997. "New Result in Theory of Consumption: Changes in Savings and Income Growth," Macroeconomics 9706007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Luis Eduardo Arango & Lina Cardona-Sosa, 2015. "Determinants of consumer credit within a constrained framework: evidence from Colombian microdata," Borradores de Economia 912, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    17. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    18. Lugilde, Alba & Bande, Roberto & Riveiro, Dolores, 2017. "Precautionary Saving: a review of the theory and the evidence," MPRA Paper 77511, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Takala, Kari, 1995. "The consumption function revisited: an error-correction model for Finnish consumption," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 20/1995, Bank of Finland.
    20. Madsen, Jakob B. & Mcaleer, Michael, 2000. "Direct Tests of the Permanent Income Hypothesis under Uncertainty, Inflationary Expectations and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 229-252, April.
    21. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1995_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Marjorie A. Flavin, 1991. "The Joint Consumption/Asset Demand Decision: A Case Study in Robust Estimation," NBER Working Papers 3802, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:eso:journl:v:45:y:2014:i:4:p:511-535. 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: Aedin Doris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.esr.ie .

    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.