Liquidity Constraints, Income Variance, and Buffer Stock Savings: Experimental Evidence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Duffy, John; Orland, Andreas
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Irvine; University of Osaka; Corvinus University Budapest
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.12784
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1153-1174
• 关键词: cognitive reflection; CHOICE; debt; consumption; uncertainty; retirement; students; BEHAVIOR; aversion; MODEL

摘要

We test the buffer stock model of savings behavior using a three-period intertemporal model. In one treatment, liquidity in the second period is constrained (borrowing not possible), while the unconstrained treatment has no such constraint. The buffer stock model predicts that a second-period liquidity constraint increases first-period savings. We also vary the variance of stochastic income (high or low) in a 2x2$2 \times 2$ design. While we find no evidence for the predicted liquidity constraint effect, most other predictions hold, for example, income variance effects. Observed departures can be explained by some combination of debt aversion, cognitive heterogeneity, and/or learning.