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On the relationships between real consumption, income and wealth

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Author Info
Michael Palumbo
Jeremy Rudd
Karl Whelan

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Abstract

The existence of durable goods implies that the welfare flow from consumption cannot be directly associated with total consumption expenditures. As a result, tests of standard theories of consumption (such as the Permanent Income Hypothesis, or PIH) typically focus on nondurable goods and services. Specifically, these studies generally relate real consumption of nondurable goods and services to measures of real income and wealth, where the latter are deflated by a price index for total consumption expenditures. We demonstrate that this procedure is only valid under the assumption that real consumption of nondurables and services is a constant multiple of aggregate real consumption outlays--an assumption that represents a very poor description of U.S. data. We develop an alternative approach that is based on the observation that the ratio of these series has historically been stable in nominal terms, and use this approach to examine two basic predictions of the PIH. We obtain significantly different results relative to the traditional approach.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 2002-38.

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Date of creation: 2002
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2002-38

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Keywords: Consumption (Economics);

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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. Gali, Jordi, 1990. "Finite horizons, life-cycle savings, and time-series evidence on consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 433-452, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Karl Whelan, 2001. "A two-sector approach to modeling U.S. NIPA data," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-04, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  3. 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 971-87, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J., 1980. "Formulating and estimating dynamic linear rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 7-46, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Campbell, John Y & Deaton, Angus, 1989. "Why Is Consumption So Smooth?," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(3), pages 357-73, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. 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 1249-73, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Deaton, A. & Grosh, M., 1998. "Consumption," Papers 191, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
  8. Davidson, James E H, et al, 1978. "Econometric Modelling of the Aggregate Time-Series Relationship between Consumers' Expenditure and Income in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 88(352), pages 661-92, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Cliff L. F. Attfield & Jonathan R. W. Temple, 2006. "Balanced growth and the great ratios: new evidence for the US and UK," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 75, Economics, The Univeristy of Manchester. [Downloadable!]
  2. Marcel Fratzscher & Luciana Juvenal & Lucio Sarno, 2007. "Asset prices, exchange rates and the current account," Working Paper Series 790, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Rudd, Jeremy & Whelan, Karl, 2002. "A Note on the Cointegration of Consumption, Income, and Wealth," Research Technical Papers 5/RT/02, Central Bank & Financial Services Authority of Ireland (CBFSAI). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2006. "Empirical Proxies for the Consumption-Wealth Ratio," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(1), pages 34-51, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Vincent Labhard & Gabriel Sterne & Chris Young, . "Wealth and consumption: an assessment of the international evidence," Bank of England working papers 275, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  6. Alpo Willman, 2007. "Sequential optimization, front-loaded information, and U.S. consumption," Working Paper Series 765, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  7. Alpo Willman, 2003. "Consumption; habit persistence; imperfect information and the lifetime budget constraint," Working Paper Series 251, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  8. Pierre Lafourcade, 2008. "Are Asset Returns Predictable from the National Accounts?," DNB Working Papers 189, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  9. Bover, Olympia, 2006. "Wealth Effects on Consumption: Microeconometric Estimates from a New Survey of Household Finances," CEPR Discussion Papers 5874, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Frédérick Demers, 2005. "Modelling and Forecasting Housing Investment: The Case of Canada," Working Papers 05-41, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
  11. Whelan, Karl, 2006. "Consumption and Expected Asset Returns without Assumptions About Unobservables," MPRA Paper 5891, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  12. Lise Pichette & Dominique Tremblay, 2003. "Are Wealth Effects Important for Canada?," Working Papers 03-30, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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