Consumption and risk sharing over the life cycle

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Storesletten, K; Telmer, CI; Yaron, A
• 署名单位: University of Oslo; Carnegie Mellon University; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2003.06.005
• 发表日期: 2004
• 页码: 609-633
• 关键词: Risk sharing; buffer-stock savings; consumption inequality

摘要

A striking feature of U.S. data on income and consumption is that inequality increases with age. This paper asks if individual-specific earnings risk can provide a coherent explanation. We find that it can. We construct an overlapping generations general equilibrium model in which households face uninsurable earnings shocks over the course of their lifetimes. Earnings inequality is exogenous and is calibrated to match data from the U.S. Panel Study on Income Dynamics. Consumption inequality is endogenous and matches well data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. The total risk households face is decomposed into that realized before entering the labor market and that realized throughout the working years. In welfare terms, the latter is found to be more important than the former. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.