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Risk Sharing in Private Information Models with Asset Accumulation: Explaining the Excess Smoothness of Consumption

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Author Info
Orazio Attanasio
Nicola Pavoni

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Abstract

We study testable implications for the dynamics of consumption and income of models in which first best allocations are not achieved because of a moral hazard problem with hidden saving. We show that in this environment agents typically achieve more insurance than that obtained under self insurance with a single asset. Consumption allocations exhibit 'excess smoothness' as found and defined by Campbell and Deaton (1989). We argue that excess smoothness, in this context, is equivalent to a violation of the intertemporal budget constraint considered in a Bewley economy (with a single asset). We also show parametrizations of our model in which we can obtain a closed form solution for the efficient insurance contract and where the excess smoothness parameter has a structural interpretation in terms of the severity of the moral hazard problem. We present tests of excess smoothness, applied to UK micro data, and constructed using techniques proposed by Hansen et al. (1991) to test the intertemporal budget constraint. Our theoretical model leads to interpret them as tests of the market structure faced by economic agents. We also construct a test based on the dynamics of the cross sectional variances of consumption and income that is, in a precise sense, complementary to that based on Hansen et al (1991) and that allows to estimate the same structural parameter. The results we report are consistent with the implications of the model and internally coherent.

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Paper provided by Collegio Carlo Alberto in its series Carlo Alberto Notebooks with number 103.

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Length: 60 pages
Date of creation: 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:103

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References listed on IDEAS
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. Attanasio, Orazio P & Weber, Guglielmo, 1993. "Consumption Growth, the Interest Rate and Aggregation," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 60(3), pages 631-49, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Gali, Jordi, 1991. "Budget Constraints and Time-Series Evidence on Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1238-53, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. 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)
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  4. Bisin, Alberto & Gottardi, Piero, 1999. "Competitive Equilibria with Asymmetric Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 1-48, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Allen, Franklin, 1985. "Repeated principal-agent relationships with lending and borrowing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 27-31. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Richard Blundell & Ian Preston, 1998. "Consumption Inequality And Income Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(2), pages 603-640, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Mikhail Golosov & Narayana Kocherlakota & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2003. "Optimal Indirect and Capital Taxation," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 70(3), pages 569-587, 07. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Abraham, Arpad & Pavoni, Nicola, 2004. "Efficient Allocations with Moral Hazard and Hidden Borrowing and Lending," Working Papers 04-05, Duke University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Bewley, Truman, 1977. "The permanent income hypothesis: A theoretical formulation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 252-292, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Costas Meghir & Luigi Pistaferri, 2004. "Income Variance Dynamics and Heterogeneity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 1-32, 01. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. 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 503-43, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Árpád Ábrahám & Nicola Pavoni, 2005. "The Efficient Allocation of Consumption under Moral Hazard and Hidden Access to the Credit Market," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 370-381, 04/05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. 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 1121-57, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. West, Kenneth D., 1988. "The insensitivity of consumption to news about income," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 17-33, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Deaton, Angus, 1985. "Panel data from time series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 109-126. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "Repeated Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(1), pages 69-76, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Orazio Attanasio & Margherita Borella, 2006. "Stochastic Components of Individual Consumption: A Time Series Analysis of Grouped Data," NBER Working Papers 12456, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1989. "On the Covariance Structure of Earnings and Hours Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 411-45, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. Orazio Attanasio & Tullio Jappelli, 1998. "Intertemporal Choice and the Cross Sectional Variance of Marginal Utility," CSEF Working Papers 06.1998, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy. [Downloadable!]
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  25. Prescott, Edward C & Townsend, Robert M, 1984. "Pareto Optima and Competitive Equilibria with Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 21-45, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Nelson, J.A., 1993. "On Testing for Full Insurance Using Consumer Expenditures Survey Data," Papers 93-02, California Davis - Institute of Governmental Affairs.
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  29. Ligon, Ethan, 1998. "Risk Sharing and Information in Village Economics," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 65(4), pages 847-64, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  30. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Ian Preston, 2004. "Consumption inequality and partial insurance," IFS Working Papers W04/28, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
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  31. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
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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. Orazio Attanasio & Margherita Borella, 2006. "Stochastic Components of Individual Consumption: A Time Series Analysis of Grouped Data," NBER Working Papers 12456, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Pricila Maziero & Laurence Ales, 2008. "Accounting for private information," Working Papers 663, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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