Does income inequality lead to consumption inequality? - Evidence and theory

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Krueger, Dirk; Perri, Fabrizio
• 署名单位: Goethe University Frankfurt; University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research; New York University; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Minneapolis
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-937X.2006.00373.x
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 163-193
• 关键词: risk; debt; earnings; MARKETS

摘要

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the U.S. has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has increased significantly for income, but little for consumption. We then develop a simple framework that allows us to characterize analytically how within-group income inequality affects consumption inequality in a world in which agents can trade a full set of contingent consumption claims, subject to endogenous constraints emanating from the limited enforcement of intertemporal contracts. Finally, we quantitatively evaluate. in the context of a calibrated general equilibrium production economy. whether this set-up. or alternatively a standard incomplete markets model. can account for the documented stylized consumption inequality facts from the U.S. data.