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Consumption Growth in a Booming Economy: Taiwan 1976-96

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  • David J. McKenzie

Abstract

Consumption and income have both grown rapidly in Taiwan over the past forty years, with younger birth cohorts experiencing faster growth. The long upward trend in consumption presents a strong challenge to the consumption smoothing predictions of the Permanent Income Hypothesis. We investigate the extent to which consumption theory can account for this trend in an environment where a large majority of households have high savings rates. Household survey data from 1976-96 are used to estimate dynamic pseudo-panel models with inter-cohort heterogeneity. We evaluate the impacts on consumption of migration, mortality, household composition, liquidity constraints, unanticipated aggregate shocks, hyperbolic discounting, habit formation and precautionary saving. Taiwanese consumption growth is found to result from high levels of prudence, with the faster consumption growth of younger cohorts attributed to their greater participation in industries with more earnings risk.Classification-JEL: O12, O16, E21, C23

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  • David J. McKenzie, 2001. "Consumption Growth in a Booming Economy: Taiwan 1976-96," Working Papers 823, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
  • Handle: RePEc:egc:wpaper:823
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    Cited by:

    1. Devereux, Paul J., 2007. "Improved Errors-in-Variables Estimators for Grouped Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 278-287, July.
    2. Francisca Antman & David J. McKenzie, 2007. "Earnings Mobility and Measurement Error: A Pseudo-Panel Approach," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(1), pages 125-161, October.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    consumption growth; pseudo-panel; prudence; Taiwan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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