Consumption Quality and Employment Across the Wealth Distribution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ferraro, Domenico; Valaitis, Vytautas
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; University of Surrey
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdae052
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1801-1836
• 关键词: Idiosyncratic risk; tax progressivity; business cycles; LABOR; insurance; GROWTH; INEQUALITY; quantity

摘要

In the U.S., market hours worked are approximately flat across the wealth distribution. Accounting for this phenomenon is a standing challenge for standard heterogeneous-agent macro models. In these models, wealthier households consume more and work fewer hours. We propose a theory that generates the cross-sectional wealth-hours relation as in the data. We quantify this theory in a heterogeneous-agent incomplete-markets model with three key features: a quality choice in consumption, non-homothetic preferences, and a multi-sector production structure. We show that the model produces consumption expenditure patterns consistent with the data and realistic quality Engel curves.