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Household Composition and Savings: An Overview

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  • Felix Freyland

    (Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA))

Abstract

In recent years the literature on household saving behavior has been enriched by a number of contributions focusing on the problem of modelling a household as a single decision unit. It has reasonably been argued that with respect to household consumption and saving behavior the simple approach of modelling households as one representative decider could involve major mistakes. Thus the literature has enriched the basic model by incorporating variables that describe the composition of a household examples being the number and age of children, household member’s life expectancies and the intrahousehold distribution of income. This paper reviews these developments and empirical results in the latest literature, with a particular focus on intra-household income distributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Freyland, 2005. "Household Composition and Savings: An Overview," MEA discussion paper series 05087, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:mea:meawpa:05087
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    3. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2001. "Household Saving and Full Consumpyion Over the Life Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 428, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    4. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley, 2001. "The Life-Cycle Model of Consumption and Saving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
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    6. Bourguignon, Francois & Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective models of household behavior : An introduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 355-364, April.
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    8. Euwals, Rob & Börsch-Supan, Axel H. & Eymann, Angelika, 2000. "The Saving Behaviour of Two Person Households: Evidence from Dutch Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 238, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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