IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/41756.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revisiting the Effect of Household Size on Consumption Over the Life-Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Bick, Alexander
  • Choi, Sekyu

Abstract

Although the link between household size and consumption has a strong empirical support, there is no consistent way in which demographics are dealt with in standard life-cycle models. We study the relationship between the predictions of the Single Agent model (the standard in the literature) versus a simple model extension where deterministic changes in household size and composition affect optimal consumption decisions. We provide theoretical results comparing both approaches and quantify the differences in predictions across models.

Suggested Citation

  • Bick, Alexander & Choi, Sekyu, 2012. "Revisiting the Effect of Household Size on Consumption Over the Life-Cycle," MPRA Paper 41756, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:41756
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/41756/1/MPRA_paper_41756.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Domeij, 2013. "Should Day Care be Subsidized?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 568-595.
    2. Jesus Fernández-Villaverde & Dirk Krueger, 2007. "Consumption over the Life Cycle: Facts from Consumer Expenditure Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 552-565, August.
    3. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & John A. Knowles, 2003. "More on Marriage, Fertility, and the Distribution of Income," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(3), pages 827-862, August.
    4. Attanasio, Orazio P, et al, 1999. "Humps and Bumps in Lifetime Consumption," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(1), pages 22-35, January.
    5. Orazio Attanasio & Hamish Low & Virginia Sánchez-Marcos, 2008. "Explaining Changes in Female Labor Supply in a Life-Cycle Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1517-1552, September.
    6. Hong, Jay H. & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 2007. "Social security, life insurance and annuities for families," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 118-140, January.
    7. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2007. "Consumer Bankruptcy: A Fresh Start," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 402-418, March.
    8. Hamish Low & Luigi Pistaferri, 2010. "Disability Risk, Disability Insurance and Life Cycle Behavior," NBER Working Papers 15962, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Attanasio, Orazio P & Weber, Guglielmo, 1995. "Is Consumption Growth Consistent with Intertemporal Optimization? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1121-1157, December.
    10. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 2002. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 47-89, January.
    11. Alejandrina Salcedo & Todd Schoellman & Michèle Tertilt, 2012. "Families as roommates: Changes in U.S. household size from 1850 to 2000," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(1), pages 133-175, March.
    12. Cutler, David M & Katz, Lawrence F, 1992. "Rising Inequality? Changes in the Distribution of Income and Consumption in the 1980's," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 546-551, May.
    13. Storesletten, Kjetil & Telmer, Christopher I. & Yaron, Amir, 2004. "Consumption and risk sharing over the life cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 609-633, April.
    14. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 1993. "Consumption Growth, the Interest Rate and Aggregation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 631-649.
    15. Dirk Krueger & Fabrizio Perri & Luigi Pistaferri & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "Cross Sectional Facts for Macroeconomists," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, January.
    16. Richard Blundell & Hamish Low & Ian Preston, 2013. "Decomposing changes in income risk using consumption data," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(1), pages 1-37, March.
    17. Banks, James & Blundell, Richard & Preston, Ian, 1994. "Life-cycle expenditure allocations and the consumption costs of children," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1391-1410, August.
    18. Attanasio, Orazio P & Browning, Martin, 1995. "Consumption over the Life Cycle and over the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1118-1137, December.
    19. Carroll, Christopher D., 2006. "The method of endogenous gridpoints for solving dynamic stochastic optimization problems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 312-320, June.
    20. Karen Kopecky & Richard Suen, 2010. "Finite State Markov-chain Approximations to Highly Persistent Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(3), pages 701-714, July.
    21. Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln, 2008. "The Response of Household Saving to the Large Shock of German Reunification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1798-1828, December.
    22. Angus S. Deaton & Christina Paxson, 1994. "Saving, Growth, and Aging in Taiwan," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in the Economics of Aging, pages 331-362, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Martin Browning & Mette Ejrnæs, 2009. "Consumption and Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 93-111, February.
    24. Deaton, Angus & Paxson, Christina, 1994. "Intertemporal Choice and Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(3), pages 437-467, June.
    25. Jay H. Hong & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2012. "Life Insurance and Household Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3701-3730, December.
    26. Greg Kaplan, 2012. "Inequality and the life cycle," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(3), pages 471-525, November.
    27. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Ian Preston, 2008. "Consumption Inequality and Partial Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1887-1921, December.
    28. David A. Wise, 1994. "Studies in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise94-1, August.
    29. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "How Much Consumption Insurance beyond Self-Insurance?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 53-87, October.
    30. Dirk Krueger & Fabrizio Perri, 2006. "Does Income Inequality Lead to Consumption Inequality? Evidence and Theory -super-1," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(1), pages 163-193.
    31. Barillas, Francisco & Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus, 2007. "A generalization of the endogenous grid method," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2698-2712, August.
    32. Laitner, John & Silverman, Dan, 2012. "Consumption, retirement and social security: Evaluating the efficiency of reform that encourages longer careers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(7-8), pages 615-634.
    33. Shintaro Yamaguchi & Claudia Ruiz & Maurizio Mazzocco, 2014. "Labor Supply, Wealth Dynamics and Marriage Decisions," 2014 Meeting Papers 210, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    34. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2014. "Consumption and Labor Supply with Partial Insurance: An Analytical Framework," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 2075-2126, July.
    35. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln, 2008. "The Response of Household Saving to the Large Shock of German Reunification," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2008-21, Center for Retirement Research, revised Dec 2008.
    36. Heathcote, Jonathan & Storesletten, Kjetil & Violante, Giovanni L., 2008. "Insurance and opportunities: A welfare analysis of labor market risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 501-525, April.
    37. Lazear, Edward P & Michael, Robert T, 1980. "Family Size and the Distribution of Real Per Capita Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(1), pages 91-107, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis & Yu Zheng, 2017. "Why Is Food Consumption Inequality Underestimated? A Story of Vices and Children," Working Papers 969, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Nicoleta Ciurilă & Carolijn Kok & Harry ter Rele & Peter Zwaneveld, 2022. "Optimizing the Life-Cycle Path of Pension Premium Payments and the Pension Ambition in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 69-105, February.
    3. Sekyu Choi, 2017. "Fertility Risk In The Life Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(1), pages 237-259, February.
    4. Thomas H. Jørgensen, 2016. "Euler equation estimation: Children and credit constraints," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(3), pages 935-968, November.
    5. Thomas H. Jørgensen, 2017. "Life-Cycle Consumption and Children: Evidence from a Structural Estimation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(5), pages 717-746, October.
    6. Harry ter Rele & Carolijn de Kok & Nicoleta Ciurila & Peter Zwaneveld, 2021. "Optimizing the life cycle path of pension premium payments and the pension ambition in the Netherlands," CPB Discussion Paper 421.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    7. Thomas H. Jørgensen, 2014. "Life-Cycle Consumption and Children," CAM Working Papers 2014_02, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.
    8. Jurgen Faik & Uwe Fachinger, 2013. "The decomposition of well-being categories: An application to Germany," Working Papers 307, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    9. Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül ; Zheng, Yu, 2016. "Missing Consumption Inequality: Direct Evidence from Individual Food Data," Economics Working Papers ECO2016/12, European University Institute.
    10. Sewon Hur, 2018. "The Lost Generation of the Great Recession," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 179-202, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bick, Alexander & Choi, Sekyu, 2011. "Life-cycle consumption: can single agent models get it right?," MPRA Paper 30910, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Thomas H. Jørgensen, 2017. "Life-Cycle Consumption and Children: Evidence from a Structural Estimation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(5), pages 717-746, October.
    3. Alexander Bick, 2011. "Life-Cycle Consumption: Can Single Agent Models Get it Right?," 2011 Meeting Papers 940, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2009. "Quantitative Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Households," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 319-354, May.
    5. Thomas H. Jørgensen, 2014. "Life-Cycle Consumption and Children," CAM Working Papers 2014_02, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.
    6. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Implications of Rising Wage Inequality in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 681-722, August.
    7. Job Boerma & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2021. "Inferring Inequality With Home Production," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(5), pages 2517-2556, September.
    8. KITAO Sagiri & YAMADA Tomoaki, 2023. "The Time Trend and Life-cycle Profiles of Consumption," Discussion papers 23036, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    9. Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis & Yu Zheng, 2017. "Why Is Food Consumption Inequality Underestimated? A Story of Vices and Children," Working Papers 969, Barcelona School of Economics.
    10. Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül ; Zheng, Yu, 2016. "Missing Consumption Inequality: Direct Evidence from Individual Food Data," Economics Working Papers ECO2016/12, European University Institute.
    11. Thomas H. Jørgensen, 2016. "Euler equation estimation: Children and credit constraints," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(3), pages 935-968, November.
    12. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "How Much Consumption Insurance beyond Self-Insurance?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 53-87, October.
    13. Krueger, D. & Mitman, K. & Perri, F., 2016. "Macroeconomics and Household Heterogeneity," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 843-921, Elsevier.
    14. Primiceri, Giorgio E. & van Rens, Thijs, 2009. "Heterogeneous life-cycle profiles, income risk and consumption inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 20-39, January.
    15. Richard Blundell & Hamish Low & Ian Preston, 2013. "Decomposing changes in income risk using consumption data," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(1), pages 1-37, March.
    16. Yamada, Tomoaki, 2012. "Income risk, macroeconomic and demographic change, and economic inequality in Japan," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 63-84.
    17. Theloudis, Alexandros, 2021. "Consumption inequality across heterogeneous families," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    18. De Magalhães, Leandro & Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül, 2018. "The consumption, income, and wealth of the poorest: An empirical analysis of economic inequality in rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa for macroeconomists," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 350-371.
    19. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "Unequal We Stand: An Empirical Analysis of Economic Inequality in the United States: 1967-2006," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 15-51, January.
    20. Yavuz Arslan & Bulent Guler & Temel Taskin, 2021. "Price Search, Consumption Inequality And Expenditure Inequality Over The Life ‐Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 295-320, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption; Life-Cycle Models;

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:41756. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.