IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/adr/anecst/y1988i9p71-91.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Life Cycle Permanent-Income Model and Consumer Durables

Author

Listed:
  • Avner Bar-Ilan
  • Alan S. Blinder

Abstract

This paper presents an extension of the life cycle permanent-income model of consumption to the case of a durable good whose purchase involves limpy transactions costs. By integrating the advancement/postponement decision in the individual's analysis, the implications of the model are different in some respects from those of standard consumption theory. Using explicit aggregation it is shown that expenditures on durables display very large short-run elasticity to changes in permanent income. Empirical tests generally produce results that are in line with the theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Avner Bar-Ilan & Alan S. Blinder, 1988. "The Life Cycle Permanent-Income Model and Consumer Durables," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 9, pages 71-91.
    • Handle: RePEc:adr:anecst:y:1988:i:9:p:71-91
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20075682
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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. J. S. Flemming, 1969. "The Utility of Wealth and the Utility of Windfalls," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 36(1), pages 55-66.
    3. Abel, Andrew B., 1980. "Empirical investment equations : An integrative framework," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 39-91, January.
    4. Bils, Mark J, 1985. "Real Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 666-689, August.
    5. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1.
    6. Flavin, Marjorie A, 1981. "The Adjustment of Consumption to Changing Expectations about Future Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 974-1009, October.
    7. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    8. Mankiw, N. Gregory, 1982. "Hall's consumption hypothesis and durable goods," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 417-425.
    9. Bernanke, Ben, 1985. "Adjustment costs, durables, and aggregate consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 41-68, January.
    10. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762, September.
    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. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 1993. "Microeconomic Adjustment Hazards and Aggregate Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 359-383.
    2. De Gregorio, Jose & Guidotti, Pablo E & Vegh, Carlos A, 1998. "Inflation Stabilisation and the Consumption of Durable Goods," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 105-131, January.
    3. Caballero, Ricardo J, 1993. "Durable Goods: An Explanation for Their Slow Adjustment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 351-384, April.
    4. Yan Yuan & Toshiyuki Sueyoshi, 2017. "Effects of balance transfer offers on consumer short-term finance: evidence from credit card data," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 6(1), pages 1-30, December.
    5. Bart Capeau & André Decoster & Frederic Vermeulen, 2003. "Homeownership and the Life Cycle: an Ordered Logit Approach," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces0308, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    6. Jerome Adda & Russell Cooper, 2000. "The Dynamics of Car Sales: A Discrete Choice Approach," NBER Working Papers 7785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Sebastien Buttet & Veronika Dolar, 2015. "Engines of liberation redux when home appliances prices are endogenous [Einfluss des Preises von Haushaltsgeräten auf die Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 48(1), pages 27-40, March.
    8. Joseph Nichols, 2004. "A Life-cycle Model with Housing, Portfolio Allocation, and Mortgage Financing," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 205, Econometric Society.
    9. Maitra, Sudeshna, 2016. "The poor get poorer: Tracking relative poverty in India using a durables-based mixture model," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 110-120.
    10. de Ruiter, Marcel & Smant, David J. C., 1999. "The Household Balance Sheet and Durable Consumer Expenditures: An Empirical Investigation for The Netherlands, 1972-93," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 243-274, March.

    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. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.
    2. Abel, Andrew B., 1990. "Consumption and investment," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 14, pages 725-778, Elsevier.
    3. Gomes, Fábio Augusto Reis, 2010. "Consumo no Brasil: Comportamento Otimizador, Restrição de Crédito ou Miopia?," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 64(3), September.
    4. Miron, Jeffrey A, 1986. "Seasonal Fluctuations and the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Model of Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(6), pages 1258-1279, December.
    5. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Avner Bar-Ilan & Alan S. Blinder, 1988. "Consumer Durables and the Optimality of Usually Doing Nothing," NBER Working Papers 2488, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Christopher D. Carroll & Jiri Slacalek & Martin Sommer, 2011. "International Evidence on Sticky Consumption Growth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1135-1145, November.
    8. Jose Luengo-Prado, Maria, 2006. "Durables, nondurables, down payments and consumption excesses," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1509-1539, October.
    9. Bernanke, Ben, 1985. "Adjustment costs, durables, and aggregate consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 41-68, January.
    10. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 1992. "Do consumers behave as the life-cycle/permanent-income theory of consumption predicts?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 3-14.
    11. 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.
    12. Hansen, Hermann-Josef, 1996. "Der Einfluß der Zinsen auf den privaten Verbrauch in Deutschland," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1996,03, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    13. Bram De Rock & Bart Capéau, 2015. "The implications of household size and children for life-cycle saving," Working Paper Research 286, National Bank of Belgium.
    14. Mankiw, N Gregory, 1985. "Consumer Durables and the Real Interest Rate," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 353-362, August.
    15. Päivi Kankaanranta, 2006. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle: A Selected Literature Review," Discussion Papers 7, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    16. Cavalcanti, Carlos B., 1993. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption: An American Investigation for Brazil," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 13(2), November.
    17. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    18. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Joseph P. Dejuan & John J. Seater & Tony S. Wirjanto, 2010. "Testing the Stochastic Implications of the Permanent Income Hypothesis Using Canadian Provincial Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(1), pages 89-108, February.
    20. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1998. "Social evaluation functions, economic isolation and the Suits index of progressivity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 103-121, July.
    21. Duclos, J.Y., 1995. "Economic Isolation, Inequality, and the Suits Index of Progressivity," Papers 9510, Laval - Recherche en Politique Economique.

    More about this item

    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:adr:anecst:y:1988:i:9:p:71-91. 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: Secretariat General or Laurent Linnemer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ensaefr.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.