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Consumption Over the Life Cycle

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Author Info
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas
Jonathan A. Parker

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Abstract

This paper employs a synthetic cohort technique and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to construct average age-profiles of consumption and income over the working lives of typical households across different education and occupation groups. Using these profiles, we estimate a structural model of optimal life-cycle consumption expenditures in the presence of realistic labor income uncertainty. The model fits the profiles quite well. In addition to providing tight estimates of the discount rate and risk aversion, we find that consumer behavior changes strikingly over the life-cycle. Young consumers behave as buffer-stock agents. Around age 40, the typical household starts accumulating liquid assets for retirement, and its behavior mimics more closely that of a certainty equivalent consumer. This change in behavior is mostly driven by the life-cycle profile of expected income. Our methodology provides a natural decomposition of saving into its precautionary and retirement components.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7271.

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Date of creation: Jul 1999
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Publication status: published as Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and Jonathan A. Parker. "Consumption Over The Life Cycle," Econometrica, 2002, v70(1,Jan), 47-89.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7271

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving

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  1. Quantitative Macroeconomics and Real Business Cycles (QM&RBC)
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  1. Carroll, Christopher D, 1997. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(1), pages 1-55, February.
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