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Representing Consumption and Saving without a Representative Consumer

In: Measuring Economic Sustainability and Progress

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  • Christopher D. Carroll

Abstract

The Great Recession confirmed a bedrock principle of modern consumption theory: It is impossible to explain aggregate spending behavior without knowledge of the underlying microeconomic distribution of circumstances and choices across households. National accounting frameworks therefore need to be augmented by "bottom up" measures that both (a) capture the microeconomic heterogeneity (in expenditures, income, assets, debt, and beliefs) in the population and (b) sum up to statistics that have a recognizable relationship to the aggregate totals that are already reasonably well measured.
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Suggested Citation

  • Christopher D. Carroll, 2014. "Representing Consumption and Saving without a Representative Consumer," NBER Chapters,in: Measuring Economic Sustainability and Progress, pages 115-134 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:12830
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
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    4. Mark Bils & Mark Aguiar, 2010. "Has Consumption Inequality Mirrored Income Inequality?," 2010 Meeting Papers 1334, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters,in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    11. Jason DeBacker & Bradley Heim & Vasia Panousi & Ivan Vidangos, 2011. "Rising inequality: transitory or permanent? New evidence from a U.S. panel of household income 1987-2006," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2011-60, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US).
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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