IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jmacro/v33y2011i4p542-552.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What explains consumption in the very short-run? Evidence from checking account data

Author

Listed:
  • Fusaro, Marc Anthony
  • Dutkowsky, Donald H.

Abstract

This paper investigates consumption behavior within an intertemporal optimization model of the representative household. Our dataset consists of deposits and withdrawals from individual household checking accounts that received paychecks by direct deposit. We construct samples of panel data for households with weekly, biweekly, and semi-monthly pay-periods and form two different measures of consumption for each sample. GMM estimates of structural parameters provide mixed evidence for habit formation or durability and limited support for the permanent income hypothesis. The results instead point to “rule of thumb” consumption under liquidity constraints, where the household consumes its current disposable income each pay-period with possible debt servicing. These findings are uniform with regard to estimation of sub-samples split according to age or household income.

Suggested Citation

  • Fusaro, Marc Anthony & Dutkowsky, Donald H., 2011. "What explains consumption in the very short-run? Evidence from checking account data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 542-552.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:33:y:2011:i:4:p:542-552
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2011.05.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164070411000437
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmacro.2011.05.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Consumption and Liquidity Constraints: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 305-346, April.
    3. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    4. Abel, Andrew B, 1990. "Asset Prices under Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 38-42, May.
    5. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318, Elsevier.
    6. Ferson, Wayne E. & Constantinides, George M., 1991. "Habit persistence and durability in aggregate consumption: Empirical tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 199-240, October.
    7. Amato, Jeffery D. & Laubach, Thomas, 2004. "Implications of habit formation for optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 305-325, March.
    8. Bouakez, Hafedh & Cardia, Emanuela & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2005. "Habit formation and the persistence of monetary shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1073-1088, September.
    9. Rob Alessie & Federica Teppa, 2010. "Saving and habit formation: evidence from Dutch panel data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 385-407, April.
    10. Wooheon Rhee, 2004. "Habit Formation And Precautionary Saving: Evidence From The Korean Household Panel Studies," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 1-19, December.
    11. Alessandra Guariglia, 2002. "Consumption, habit formation, and precautionary saving: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 54(1), pages 1-19, January.
    12. Karen E. Dynan, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumer Preferences: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 391-406, June.
    13. Alessie, Rob & Lusardi, Annamaria, 1997. "Consumption, saving and habit formation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 103-108, August.
    14. Campbell, John Y & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1990. "Permanent Income, Current Income, and Consumption," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(3), pages 265-279, July.
    15. Enrichetta Ravina, 2005. "Keeping Up with the Joneses: Evidence from Micro Data," 2005 Meeting Papers 557, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Alessie, R.J.M. & Teppa, F., 2002. "Saving and Habit Formation : Evidence from Dutch Panel Data," Other publications TiSEM 60427e7c-434b-4fbc-a05d-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Raymund Abara, 2006. "Estimation and evaluation of asset pricing models with habit formation using Philippine data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(8), pages 493-497.
    18. Deaton, Angus, 1992. "Understanding Consumption," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288244.
    19. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumption and Its Implications for Monetary-Policy Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 367-390, June.
    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. Steinar Holden, 2012. "Implications of insights from behavioral economics for macroeconomic models," IMK Working Paper 99-2012, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    2. Michael Cohen & Marc Rysman, 2012. "Payment choice with consumer panel data," Working Papers 13, University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy.
    3. Driscoll, John C. & Holden, Steinar, 2014. "Behavioral economics and macroeconomic models," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 133-147.
    4. Sena Durguner, 2018. "Variations in farm consumption and their relationship to income: an empirical investigation of Illinois farm households," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(9), pages 990-1005, February.

    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. Jürgen Maurer & André Meier, 2008. "Smooth it Like the ‘Joneses’? Estimating Peer‐Group Effects in Intertemporal Consumption Choice," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(527), pages 454-476, March.
    2. Havranek, Tomas & Rusnak, Marek & Sokolova, Anna, 2017. "Habit formation in consumption: A meta-analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 142-167.
    3. Rob Alessie & Federica Teppa, 2010. "Saving and habit formation: evidence from Dutch panel data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 385-407, April.
    4. Christopher D. Carroll & Edmund Crawley & Jiri Slacalek & Kiichi Tokuoka & Matthew N. White, 2020. "Sticky Expectations and Consumption Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 40-76, July.
    5. Julian Thimme, 2017. "Intertemporal Substitution In Consumption: A Literature Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 226-257, February.
    6. Raquel Carrasco & José M. Labeaga & J. David López-Salido, 2005. "Consumption and Habits: Evidence from Panel Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 144-165, January.
    7. 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.
    8. Driscoll, John C. & Holden, Steinar, 2014. "Behavioral economics and macroeconomic models," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 133-147.
    9. Jürgen Maurer & André Meier, 2008. "Smooth it Like the “Joneses?†Estimating Peer-Group Effects in Intertemporal Consumption Choice," MEA discussion paper series 08167, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    10. IWAMOTO Koichiro, 2011. "Food Consumption Expenditure and Habit Formation: Evidence from Japanese Household Panel Data," ESRI Discussion paper series 264, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    11. Jim Malley & Hassan Molana, 2003. "The Life-Cycle-Permanent- Income Hypothesis: A Reinterpretation and Supporting Evidence," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 138, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    12. Khanal, Aditya & Mishra, Ashok, 2016. "Income Risk, Habit Formation, and Precautionary Savings: The Case of Rural Households," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235597, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Yulei Luo, 2008. "Consumption Dynamics under Information Processing Constraints," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 366-385, April.
    14. Alessie, R.J.M. & Teppa, F., 2002. "Saving and Habit Formation : Evidence from Dutch Panel Data," Other publications TiSEM 60427e7c-434b-4fbc-a05d-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Daria Pignalosa, 2021. "The Euler Equation Approach: Critical Implications of Recent Developments in the Theory of Intertemporal Choice," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 15(1), pages 1-43, June.
    16. Pagano, Patrizio, 2004. "Habit persistence and the marginal propensity to consume in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 316-329, September.
    17. James M. Nason & Takashi Kano, 2004. "Business Cycle Implications of Habit Formation," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 175, Society for Computational Economics.
    18. van den Bijgaart, I.M., 2017. "Too slow a change? Deep habits, consumption shifts and transitory tax," Working Papers in Economics 701, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    19. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    20. Inge van den Bijgaart, 2018. "Too Slow a Change? Deep Habits, Consumption Shifts and Transitory Tax Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 6958, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household consumption; Habit formation; Durability; “Rule of thumb” consumption; Liquidity constraints; Checking account data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • 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

    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:eee:jmacro:v:33:y:2011:i:4:p:542-552. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622617 .

    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.