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Revisiting the Empirical Inconsistency of the Permanent Income Hypothesis: Evidence from Rural China

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  • Liping Gao
  • Hyeongwoo Kim
  • Yaoqi Zhang

Abstract

Chow (1985) reports strong evidence in favor of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH) using observations from 1953 to 1982 in China. We revisit this issue with rural area household data in China during the post economic reform regime (1978-2009) as well as the postwar US data for comparison. Our in-sample analysis provides strong evidence against the PIH for both countries. Out-of-sample forecast exercises also reveal that consumption changes are highly predictable. Our vector autoregressive (VAR) model analysis also shows significantly positive responses of consumption to income shocks, and non-negligible proportions of variations in consumption are explained by innovations in income.

Suggested Citation

  • Liping Gao & Hyeongwoo Kim & Yaoqi Zhang, 2013. "Revisiting the Empirical Inconsistency of the Permanent Income Hypothesis: Evidence from Rural China," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2013-05, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    • Handle: RePEc:abn:wpaper:auwp2013-05
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Syed AMMAD* & Qazi Masood AHMED**, 2018. "AGGREGATE CONSUMPTION IN PAKISTAN: Revisiting the Permanent-Income Hypothesis under Adaptive Expectation Model," Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics, Applied Economics Research Centre, vol. 28(1), pages 33-46.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Permanent Income Hypothesis; Consumption; Generalized Method of Moments; Diebold-Mariano-West Statistic; Vector Autoregressive;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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