This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Consumption inequality and partial insurance

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Richard Blundell () (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London)
Luigi Pistaferri
Ian Preston () (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

This paper describes the transmission of income inequality into consumption inequality and in so doing investigates the degree of insurance to income shocks. It combines panel data on income from the PSID with consumption data from repeated CEX cross-sections and distinguishes between permanent and transitory income shocks. We find some partial insurance of permanent income shocks with more insurance possibilities for the college educated and those nearing retirement. We find little evidence against full insurance for transitory income shocks except among low income households. Tax and welfare benefits are found to play an important role in insuring permanent shocks. Adding durable expenditures to the consumption measure suggests that durable replacement is an important insurance mechanism, especially for transitory income shocks.

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.

File URL: http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0428.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for Fiscal Studies in its series IFS Working Papers with number W04/28.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 49 pp.
Date of creation: Nov 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:04/28

Contact details of provider:
Postal: The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE
Phone: (+44) 020 7291 4800
Fax: (+44) 020 7323 4780
Email:
Web page: http://www.ifs.org.uk

Order Information:
Postal: The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE
Email:

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Emma Hyman).

Related research
Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: 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 & 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)
    Other versions:
  2. Altonji, Joseph G & Siow, Aloysius, 1987. "Testing the Response of Consumption to Income Changes with (Noisy) Panel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 293-328, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Alan J. Auerbach & Daniel Feenberg, 2000. "The Significance of Federal Taxes as Automatic Stabilizers," NBER Working Papers 7662, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Altonji, Joseph G. & Martins, Ana Paula & Siow, Aloysius, 2002. "Dynamic factor models of consumption, hours and income," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 3-59, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Fernando Alvarez & Urban J. Jermann, 2000. "Efficiency, Equilibrium, and Asset Pricing with Risk of Default," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 775-798, July.
  6. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 1994. "Is Consumption Growth Consistent with Intertemporal Optimization? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," NBER Working Papers 4795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Attanasio, Orazio & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 2000. "Consumption smoothing in island economies: Can public insurance reduce welfare?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1225-1258, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. 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)
    Other versions:
  9. Altug, Sumru & Miller, Robert A, 1990. "Household Choices in Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(3), pages 543-70, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Orazio Attanasio & Erich Battistin & Hidehiko Ichimura, 2004. "What Really Happened to Consumption Inequality in the US?," NBER Working Papers 10338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

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.)
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? Citation analysis on IDEAS includes online papers that are freely accessible and whose text could be automatically analyzed, currently about 210000 papers.

This page was last updated on 2009-10-31.


This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.