IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rug/rugwps/04-231.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Determinants of consumption smoothing

Author

Listed:
  • G. PEERSMAN
  • L. POZZI

Abstract

As is generally acknowledged, the failure of the perfect credit markets assumption underlying the permanent income hypothesis may be responsible for low consumption smoothing and observed excess sensitivity of consumption to current income. The economic literature puts forward a number of potential determinants of liquidity constraints. In this paper we investigate the relevance of these determinants by looking at their impact on household consumption smoothing. Applying a Kalman filter to a state-space version of our model, we find that excess sensitivity in the US is higher in recessions and depends positively on government debt and negatively on financial liberalization.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Peersman & L. Pozzi, 2004. "Determinants of consumption smoothing," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/231, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    • Handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:04/231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wps-feb.ugent.be/Papers/wp_04_231.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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 971-987, December.
    2. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(2), pages 309-340.
    3. Lorenzo Pozzi & Freddy Heylen & Maarten Dossche, 2004. "Government Debt and Excess Sensitivity of Private Consumption: Estimates from OECD Countries," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(4), pages 618-633, October.
    4. Aiyagari, S. Rao & McGrattan, Ellen R., 1998. "The optimum quantity of debt," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 447-469, October.
    5. Kaminsky, Graciela Laura & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2002. "Short-run pain, long-run gain : the effects of financial liberalization," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2912, The World Bank.
    6. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    7. Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 1989. "Consumption and Capital Market Imperfections: An International Comparison," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1088-1105, December.
    8. Anil K Kashyap & Owen A. Lamont & Jeremy C. Stein, 1994. "Credit Conditions and the Cyclical Behavior of Inventories," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 565-592.
    9. 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 1249-1273, November.
    10. Philip Vermeulen, 2002. "Business fixed investment: evidence of a financial accelerator in Europe," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(3), pages 213-231, July.
    11. Christopher D. Carroll, 1994. "How does Future Income Affect Current Consumption?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 111-147.
    12. Gert Peersman & Frank Smets, 2005. "The Industry Effects of Monetary Policy in the Euro Area," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(503), pages 319-342, April.
    13. Bacchetta, Philippe & Gerlach, Stefan, 1997. "Consumption and credit constraints: International evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 207-238, October.
    14. Mankiw, N. Gregory, 1982. "Hall's consumption hypothesis and durable goods," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 417-425.
    15. Marjorie Flavin, 1985. "Excess Sensitivity of Consumption to Current Income: Liquidity Constraints or Myopia?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 18(1), pages 117-136, February.
    16. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    17. Campbell, John Y. & Mankiw, N. Gregory, 1991. "The response of consumption to income : A cross-country investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 723-756, May.
    18. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    19. McKeirnan, Barbara, 1996. "Consumption and the credit market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 83-88, April.
    20. Vermeulen, Philip, 2002. "Business Fixed Investment: Evidence of a Financial Accelerator in Europe," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(3), pages 217-235, July.
    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. Berben, Robert-Paul & Brosens, Teunis, 2007. "The impact of government debt on private consumption in OECD countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 220-225, February.
    2. Jose Luengo-Prado, Maria, 2006. "Durables, nondurables, down payments and consumption excesses," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1509-1539, October.
    3. Berben, Robert-Paul & Brosens, Teunis, 2007. "The impact of government debt on private consumption in OECD countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 220-225, February.
    4. Kutlu, Levent & Sickles, Robin C., 2012. "Estimation of market power in the presence of firm level inefficiencies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 168(1), pages 141-155.

    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. Gert Peersman & Lorenzo Pozzi, 2008. "Business Cycle Fluctuations and Excess Sensitivity of Private Consumption," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(299), pages 514-523, August.
    2. L. Pozzi & F. Heylen & M. Dossche, 2002. "Government debt and the excess sensitivity of private consumption to current income: an empirical analysis for OECD countries," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 02/155, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    3. Tomas Havranek & Anna Sokolova, 2016. "Do Consumers Really Follow a Rule of Thumb? Three Thousand Estimates from 130 Studies Say "Probably Not"," Working Papers 2016/08, Czech National Bank.
    4. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Paul Mizen & Cihan Yalcin, 2006. "Monetary Policy, Corporate Financial Composition and Real Activity," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 52(1), pages 177-213, March.
    6. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption: Saving decisions: Testing the finite horizon model," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    9. Gerdie Everaert & Lorenzo Pozzi & Ruben Schoonackers, 2017. "On the Stability of the Excess Sensitivity of Aggregate Consumption Growth in the USA," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 819-840, June.
    10. Sarantis, Nicholas & Stewart, Chris, 2003. "Liquidity constraints, precautionary saving and aggregate consumption: an international comparison," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 1151-1173, December.
    11. Tagkalakis, Athanasios, 2008. "The effects of fiscal policy on consumption in recessions and expansions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1486-1508, June.
    12. Henry, O. & Messinis, G. & Olekalns, N., 1999. "Rational Habit Modification: the Role of Credit," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 729, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Denise Côté & Christopher Graham, 2007. "Corporate Balance Sheets in Developed Economies: Implications for Investment," Staff Working Papers 07-24, Bank of Canada.
    14. Griet Malengier & Lorenzo Pozzi, 2005. "Examining Ricardian Equivalence by estimating and bootstrapping a nonlinear dynamic panel model," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2005 61, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    15. G. Everaert & L. Pozzi & -, 2010. "The Stickiness of Aggregate Consumption Growth in OECD Countries: A Panel Data Analysis," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 10/654, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    16. G. Malengier & L. Pozzi, 2004. "Examining Ricardian Equivalence by estimating and bootstrapping a nonlinear dynamic panel model," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/274, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    17. Sarno, Lucio & Taylor, Mark P., 1998. "Real Interest Rates, Liquidity Constraints and Financial Deregulation: Private Consumption Behavior in the U.K," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 221-242, April.
    18. Hansen, Hermann-Josef, 1996. "Der Einfluß der Zinsen auf den privaten Verbrauch in Deutschland," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1996,03, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    19. Madsen, Jakob B. & Mcaleer, Michael, 2000. "Direct Tests of the Permanent Income Hypothesis under Uncertainty, Inflationary Expectations and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 229-252, April.
    20. de Brouwer,Gordon, 1999. "Financial Integration in East Asia," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521651486.
    21. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo, 2004. "Consumption Theory," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, number 23, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Private consumption; liquidity constraints; consumption smoothing; excess sensitivity; Kalman filter; state-space models.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    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:rug:rugwps:04/231. 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: Nathalie Verhaeghe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ferugbe.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.