Giovanni Mastrobuoni () (Collegio Carlo Alberto and CeRP) Matthew Weinberg () (University of Georgia)
Abstract
Using data from the Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals, this paper describes the shape of consumption profiles over the month for Social Security benefit recipients. Individuals with income mostly made up of Social Security benefits and who have some savings smooth consumption over the pay period, while individuals with little savings consume 25 percent fewer calories the week before checks are received relative to the week after checks are received. The findings for individuals with little savings are inconsistent with the Permanent Income/Lifecycle Hypothesis, but are consistent with hyperbolic discounting.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy) in its series CeRP Working Papers with number
57.