IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/egc/wpaper/823.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumption Growth in a Booming Economy: Taiwan 1976-96

Author

Listed:
  • 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

Suggested Citation

  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp823.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caballero, Ricardo J., 1990. "Consumption puzzles and precautionary savings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 113-136, January.
    2. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-987, December.
    3. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    4. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Consumption and Liquidity Constraints: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 305-346, April.
    5. Verbeek, Marno & Vella, Francis, 2005. "Estimating dynamic models from repeated cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 83-102, July.
    6. Richard Blundell & Martin Browning & Costas Meghir, 1994. "Consumer Demand and the Life-Cycle Allocation of Household Expenditures," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(1), pages 57-80.
    7. repec:fth:jonhop:390 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Merrigan, Philip & Normandin, Michel, 1996. "Precautionary Saving Motives: An Assessment from UK Time Series of Cross-Sections," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1193-1208, September.
    9. Carroll Christopher Dixon, 2001. "Death to the Log-Linearized Consumption Euler Equation! (And Very Poor Health to the Second-Order Approximation)," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-38, April.
    10. Pischke, Jorn-Steffen, 1995. "Individual Income, Incomplete Information, and Aggregate Consumption," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 805-840, July.
    11. Jody Overland & Christopher D. Carroll & David N. Weil, 2000. "Saving and Growth with Habit Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 341-355, June.
    12. Attanasio, Orazio P & Weber, Guglielmo, 1995. "Is Consumption Growth Consistent with Intertemporal Optimization? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1121-1157, December.
    13. Deaton, Angus, 1985. "Panel data from time series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 109-126.
    14. Besley, Timothy & Levenson, Alec R, 1996. "The Role of Informal Finance in Household Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Taiwan," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(434), pages 39-59, January.
    15. Angus Deaton & Christina Paxson, 2000. "Growth and Saving Among Individuals and Households," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 212-225, May.
    16. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1989. "Consumption, Income, and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 185-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1797-1855, December.
    18. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    19. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumption and Its Implications for Monetary-Policy Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 367-390, June.
    20. Karen E. Dynan, 1993. "How prudent are consumers?," Working Paper Series / Economic Activity Section 135, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    21. Mariger, Randall P & Shaw, Kathryn, 1993. "Unanticipated Aggregate Disturbances and Tests of the Life-Cycle Consumption Model Using Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(1), pages 48-56, February.
    22. Dynan, Karen E, 1993. "How Prudent Are Consumers?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 1104-1113, December.
    23. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    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.

    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. McKenzie, David J., 2006. "Precautionary saving and consumption growth in Taiwan," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 84-101.
    2. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Daria Pignalosa, 2021. "The Euler Equation Approach: Critical Implications of Recent Developments in the Theory of Intertemporal Choice," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 15(1), pages 1-43, June.
    4. Julian Thimme, 2017. "Intertemporal Substitution In Consumption: A Literature Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 226-257, February.
    5. Antonio Cutanda & José M. Labeaga & Juan A. Sanchis-Llopis, 2020. "Aggregation biases in empirical Euler consumption equations: evidence from Spanish data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 957-977, March.
    6. Daria Pignalosa, 2019. "On the role of the utility function in the estimation of preference parameters," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 793-820, November.
    7. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo, 2004. "Consumption Theory," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, number 23, April.
    8. Parker, J.A., 1997. "The Reaction of Household Consumption to Predictable Changes in Payroll Tax Rates," Working papers 9724, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    9. Sydney Ludvigson & Christina H. Paxson, 2001. "Approximation Bias In Linearized Euler Equations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 242-256, May.
    10. Kim, Seewon, 2013. "Prudent consumers: New evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 77-85.
    11. Enrichetta Ravina, 2005. "Keeping Up with the Joneses: Evidence from Micro Data," 2005 Meeting Papers 557, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Jonathan Gruber, 2006. "A Tax-Based Estimate of the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution," NBER Working Papers 11945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Alessandro Federici & Pierluigi Montalbano, 2012. "Macroeconomic volatility, consumption behaviour and welfare: A cross-country analysis," Working Paper Series 3612, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    14. Jonathan A. Parker, 1999. "The Reaction of Household Consumption to Predictable Changes in Social Security Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 959-973, September.
    15. Gomes, Fábio Augusto Reis & Ribeiro, Priscila Fernandes, 2015. "Estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution taking into account the precautionary savings motive," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 108-123.
    16. Damien Echevin, 1999. "Nouvelles approches des comportements d'épargne et de consommation," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 324(1), pages 9-18.
    17. Andrea Repetto, 2001. "Incentivos al ahorro personal: Lecciones de la economía del comportamiento," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Felipe Morandé & Rodrigo Vergara & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Edit (ed.),Análisis Empírico del Ahorro en Chile, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 191-240, Central Bank of Chile.
    18. Lee, Jeong-Joon & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2010. "Precautionary saving under liquidity constraints: Evidence from rural Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 77-86, January.
    19. 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.
    20. Lugilde, Alba & Bande, Roberto & Riveiro, Dolores, 2017. "Precautionary Saving: a review of the theory and the evidence," MPRA Paper 77511, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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

    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:egc:wpaper:823. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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: Benjamin King (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/egyalus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.