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Precautionary Saving in a Markovian Earnings Environment

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  • Bar Light

    (University of Stanford)

Abstract

Under what conditions does an increase in the future income risk (in the sense of second order stochastic dominance) result in an increase in savings? This paper establishes a novel sufficient condition for the case in which income follows a Markov process. The sufficient condition applies to a broad class of preferences and processes that are often adopted in the applied literature. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Suggested Citation

  • Bar Light, 2018. "Precautionary Saving in a Markovian Earnings Environment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 138-147, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:issued:16-391
    DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2017.12.004
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    Cited by:

    1. Donatella Baiardi & Marco Magnani & Mario Menegatti, 2020. "The theory of precautionary saving: an overview of recent developments," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 513-542, June.
    2. Ma, Qingyin & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2022. "Asymptotic linearity of consumption functions and computational efficiency," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Ma, Qingyin & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2021. "A theory of the saving rate of the rich," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    4. Light, Bar & Perlroth, Andres, 2021. "The Family of Alpha,[a,b] Stochastic Orders: Risk vs. Expected Value," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    5. Antoine Bommier & François Le Grand, 2019. "Risk Aversion and Precautionary Savings in Dynamic Settings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1386-1397, March.
    6. Lehrer, Ehud & Light, Bar, 2018. "The effect of interest rates on consumption in an income fluctuation problem," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 63-71.
    7. Bar Light, 2020. "Uniqueness of equilibrium in a Bewley–Aiyagari model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(2), pages 435-450, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption; Savings; Precautionary savings; Prudence; Income uncertainty; Income fluctuation problem; Comparative statics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • C60 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - General

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