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On the Concavity of the Consumption Function

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Author Info
Christopher D. Carroll (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System)
Miles S. Kimball (The University of Michigan)

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Abstract

Zeldes (1989) Carroll (1992; 1993), and others have shown that optimal consumption behavior for consumers facing income uncertainty can be remarkably different from the certainty-equivalent case. Carroll (1992; 1993) observes that many of the differences can be attributed to the concavity of the consumption function under uncertainty, but he does not describe the conditions under which the consumption function will be concave. We show that if labor income is stochastic, the consumption function will be concave for many commonly used utility functions, and if both labor income and capital income are stochastic, the consumption function is concave for an even broader group of utility functions.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Macroeconomics with number 9503003.

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Length: 13 pages
Date of creation: 10 Mar 1995
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:9503003

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E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

This item is featured on the following reading lists:

  1. Recursive Macroeconomic Theory
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. Neave, Edwin H., 1971. "Multiperiod consumption-investment decisions and risk preference," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 40-53, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Christopher D. Carroll, 1996. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," NBER Working Papers 5788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Optimal Consumption with Stochastic Income: Deviations from Certainty Equivalence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 104(2), pages 275-98, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Miles S. Kimball, 1990. "Precautionary Saving and the Marginal Propensity to Consume," NBER Working Papers 3403, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Deaton, A. & Grosh, M., 1998. "Consumption," Papers 191, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
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