Durable consumption growth is persistent and predicted by the price-dividend ratio. This provides strong and direct evidence for the existence of a highly persistent expected component. Durable consumption growth is left-skewed and exhibits time-varying volatility. I model durable consumption growth as containing a persistent expected component and driven by counter-cyclical volatility, nondurable consumption as a random walk, and dividend growth as exposed to the expected component of durable consumption growth. Together with nonseparable Epstein-Zin preferences, the model demonstrates that long-run risk in durable consumption can explain major asset market phenomena. The model also generates an upward-sloping real term structure.
