Household survey data consistently depict large variations in saving and wealth among households with similar socio-economic characteristics. Within the context of the life" cycle hypothesis, families with identical lifetime resources might choose to accumulate" different levels of wealth for a variety of reasons, including variation in time preference rates risk tolerance, exposure to uncertainty, relative tastes for work and leisure at advanced ages income replacement rates, and so forth. These factors can be divided into a small number of" classes, each with a distinctive implication concerning the relation between accumulated wealth" and the shape of the consumption profile. By examining this relation empirically for the presence or absence of these particular explanations for differences in wealth. Using" the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Consumer Expenditure Survey little support for life cycle models that rely on the above factors to explain wealth variation. " The data are, however, consistent with rule of thumb' or mental accounting' theories of" wealth accumulation.
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6227.
Length: Date of creation: Oct 1997 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6227
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
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Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2004.
"Do the Rich Save More?,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 397-444, April.
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Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2000.
"Do the Rich Save More?,"
NBER Working Papers
7906, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Spivak, Avia & Summers, Lawrence H, 1982.
"The Adequacy of Savings,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1056-69, December.
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Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Lawrence H. Summers, 1981.
"The Adequacy of Savings,"
NBER Working Papers
0627, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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