IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0720.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Robert E. Hall

Abstract

Does a higher real interest rate induce significant postponement of consumption? According to the theory developed here, this question can be answered by studying the relation between the rate of growth of consumption and expected real interest rates. In postwar data for the United States, expected real returns have declined over time in the stock market and for savings accounts. Over the same period, the rate of growth of consumption has been almost steady. The paper concludes that intertemporal substitution is weak, for if it were strong, the growth rate of consumption would have declined.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert E. Hall, 1981. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption," NBER Working Papers 0720, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0720
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0720.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brunner, Karl & Meltzer, Allan H., 1976. "The Phillips curve," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    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. Yariv, Leeat & Jackson, Matthew O., 2018. "The Non-Existence of Representative Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 13397, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Hendry, David F. & Clements, Michael P., 2003. "Economic forecasting: some lessons from recent research," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-329, March.
    3. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1983. "Dividend taxes, corporate investment, and `Q'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-167, November.
    4. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. He, Yong, 2018. "Can the visible and invisible hands coexist in land pricing?," MPRA Paper 88770, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Lozej, Matija & Rannenberg, Ansgar, 2017. "The macroeconomic effects of the regulatory LTV and LTI ratios in the Central Bank of Ireland's DSGE model," Economic Letters 04/EL/17, Central Bank of Ireland.
    7. I. Bukina S. & P. Orekhovsky A. & И. Букина С. & П. Ореховский А., 2018. "Особенности российской модели экономического роста // Specific features of the Russian Economic Growth Model," Финансы: теория и практика/Finance: Theory and Practice // Finance: Theory and Practice, ФГОБУВО Финансовый университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации // Financial University under The Government of Russian Federation, vol. 22(6), pages 6-24.
    8. Thomas J. Sargent, 1982. "The Ends of Four Big Inflations," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation: Causes and Effects, pages 41-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    10. Cathy Yi-Hsuan Chen & Thomas C. Chiang, 2017. "Surprises, sentiments, and the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 1-28, July.
    11. Peter J. Buckley & Jeremy Clegg & Nicolas Forsans & Kevin T. Reilly, 2010. "A Simple and Flexible Dynamic Approach to Foreign Direct Investment Growth: The Canada-United States Relationship in the Context of Free Trade," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Foreign Direct Investment, China and the World Economy, chapter 17, pages 386-418, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Malick Souare, 2003. "Macroeconomic Implications of Population Aging and Public Pensions," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 100, McMaster University.
    13. Starck, Christian, 1991. "Specifying a Bayesian vector autoregression for short-run macroeconomic forecasting with an application to Finland," Research Discussion Papers 4/1991, Bank of Finland.
    14. Ericsson, Neil R & Hendry, David F & Mizon, Grayham E, 1998. "Exogeneity, Cointegration, and Economic Policy Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 370-387, October.
    15. Gaétan de Rassenfosse & Adam B. Jaffe, 2018. "Are patent fees effective at weeding out low‐quality patents?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 134-148, March.
    16. Boldea, Otilia & Hall, Alastair R., 2013. "Estimation and inference in unstable nonlinear least squares models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 172(1), pages 158-167.
    17. Valérie Chauvin & Gaël Dupont & Éric Heyer & Mathieu Plane & Xavier Timbeau, 2002. "Le modèle France de l'OFCE. La nouvelle version : e-mod.fr," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 81(2), pages 245-300.
    18. Drissi, Ramzi & Ghassan, Hassan B., 2018. "Sticky Price versus Sticky Information Price: Empirical Evidence in the New Keynesian Setting," MPRA Paper 93075, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Apr 2019.
    19. Javier Andrés & Fernando Restoy, 2007. "Macroeconomic modelling in EMU: how relevant is the change in regime?," Working Papers 0718, Banco de España.
    20. Sterman, John., 1986. "Expectation formation in behavioral simulation models," Working papers 1826-86., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    21. Muellbauer, John & Nunziata, Luca, 2001. "Credit, the Stock Market and Oil: Forecasting US GDP," CEPR Discussion Papers 2906, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:0720. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.