IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cla/najeco/625018000000000251.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumption Savings Decisions with Quasi-Geometric Discounting

Author

Listed:
  • Per Krusell
  • Anthony A Smith, Jr.

Abstract

How do individuals with time-inconsistent preferences make consumption-savings decisions? We try to answer this question by considering the simplest possible form of consumption-savings problem, assuming that discounting is quasi-geometric. A solution to the decision problem is then a subgame-perfect equilibrium of a dynamic game between the individual's ?successive selves?. When the time horizon is finite, our question has a well-defined answer in terms of primitives. When the time horizon is infinite, we are left without a sharp answer: we cannot rule out the possibility that two identical individuals in the exact same situation make different decisions! In particular, there is a continuum of dynamic equilibria even if we restrict attention to equilibria where current consumption decisions depend only on current wealth.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Per Krusell & Anthony A Smith, Jr., 2001. "Consumption Savings Decisions with Quasi-Geometric Discounting," NajEcon Working Paper Reviews 625018000000000251, www.najecon.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:najeco:625018000000000251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.najecon.org/v2.htm
    File Function: brief review and links to paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geir B. Asheim, 1997. "Individual and Collective Time-Consistency," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 64(3), pages 427-443.
    2. Jose-Victor Rios-Rull & Per Krusell, 1999. "On the Size of U.S. Government: Political Economy in the Neoclassical Growth Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1156-1181, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Graziella Bertocchi, 2011. "The Vanishing Bequest Tax: The Comparative Evolution Of Bequest Taxation In Historical Perspective," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 107-131, March.
    2. Grossmann, Volker & Larin, Benjamin & Löfflad, Hans Torben & Steger, Thomas, 2021. "Distributional consequences of surging housing rents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    3. Creedy, John & Moslehi, Solmaz, 2009. "Modelling the composition of government expenditure in democracies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 42-55, March.
    4. Boppart, Timo & Krusell, Per & Mitman, Kurt, 2018. "Exploiting MIT shocks in heterogeneous-agent economies: the impulse response as a numerical derivative," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 68-92.
    5. Richard C. Barnett & Joydeep Bhattacharya & Helle Bunzel, 2014. "Voting For Income-Immiserizing Redistribution In The Meltzer–Richard Model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(2), pages 682-695, April.
    6. Marco Bassetto, 2009. "The Research Agenda: Marco Bassetto on the Quantitative Evaluation of Fiscal Policy Rules," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(2), April.
    7. Lagunoff, Roger, 2006. "Credible communication in dynastic government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 59-86, January.
    8. Vincenzo Atella & Lorenzo Carbonari, 2017. "Is gerontocracy harmful for growth? A comparative study of seven European countries," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 20, pages 141-168, May.
    9. Facundo Piguillem & Anderson Schneider, 2013. "Heterogeneous Labor Skills, The Median Voter and Labor Taxes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(2), pages 332-349, April.
    10. Yanlei Ma, 2014. "Income Inequality, Political Polarization and Fiscal Policy Gridlock," 2014 Meeting Papers 547, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Glachant, Jerome & Vellutini, Charles, 2002. "Quantifying the relationship between wealth distribution and aggregate growth in the Ramsey model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 237-241, January.
    12. Ales, Laurence & Sleet, Christopher, 2014. "Revision proofness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 324-355.
    13. Galanis, S. & Ioannou, C. & Kotronis, S., 2019. "Information Aggregation Under Ambiguity: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 20/05, Department of Economics, City University London.
    14. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2015. "Redistributive Politics And Government Debt In A Borrowing-Constrained Economy," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(1), pages 83-103, January.
    15. Elizabeth Caucutt & Thomas Cooley & Nezih Guner, 2013. "The farm, the city, and the emergence of social security," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 1-32, March.
    16. Nathalie Etchart-Vincent, 2002. "Adequate Moods for non-EU Decision Making in a Sequential Framework," Post-Print halshs-00004830, HAL.
    17. Hassler, John & Krusell, Per & Storesletten, Kjetil & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2005. "The dynamics of government," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1331-1358, October.
    18. Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2010. "Social mobility and redistributive taxation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7997, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard & Sieg, Holger, 2012. "The intergenerational conflict over the provision of public education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 255-268.
    20. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cla:najeco:625018000000000251. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: http://www.najecon.org/ .

    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: David K. Levine (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.najecon.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.