Intertemporal non-separability and rule of thumb consumption

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Weber, CE
• 署名单位: Seattle University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3932(01)00113-1
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 293-308
• 关键词: consumption; rule of thumb households; intertemporal non-separability

摘要

This paper reexamines previous findings that some 50% of disposable income goes to households who consume their current incomes in violation. of the Permanent Income Hypothesis. In particular, I test whether such findings are robust to assumed intertemporal non-separability in the utility function. When the household utility function is permitted to be non-separable in consumption in adjacent time periods, the estimated fraction of disposable income which goes to such rule of thumb households is quantitatively small, sometimes negative, and never statistically significant. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.