The aim of this paper is to assess the importance of using micro-level data in the econometric analysis of consumer demand. To do this, the authors utilize a time series of repeated cross sections covering some 4,000 households in each of fifteen years. Employing a number of different...

We investigate the size of the consumption drop at retirement in Italy by exploiting pension eligibility information to correct for endogenous retirement. We take a regression discontinuity approach and assume that spending would be smooth around pension eligibility if individuals did not...

Using three major U.K. pension reforms as natural experiments we investigate the relationship between pension saving and discretionary private savings. Unlike most differences-in-differences approaches which rely on average differences between control and treatment group, we use economic theory...

This paper contributes to the debate regarding trends in consumption inequality in the United States. We present a new measure of consumption inequality based on the redesigned 1999–2011 PSID. We impute consumption to the families observed before 1999 using the more comprehensive consumption...

This paper studies the life-cycle labor supply of three cohorts of American women, born in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. We focus on the increase in labor supply of mothers between the 1940s and 1950s cohorts. We construct a lifecycle model of female participation and savings, and calibrate the...