This article investigates how wealth affected household consumption in the USA in the period 1989-2007. Previous empirical results are mixed, mostly because of the low quality of the data more readily available. We combine information from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the Survey of...

How does household wealth influence consumption? The empirical evidence brought so far by the literature is unclear, mostly because of the low quality of the data more readily available: aggregate data, cross sections and panel datasets lacking important variables all present major shortcomings...

This article investigates how wealth and capital gains affected household consumption in the USA in the period 1989-2004. The empirical evidence brought so far by a large literature that investigates the role of wealth shocks on consumption is mixed, due to the low quality of the data more...

Many claim that fluctuations in US private savings help to create and to sustain global imbalances because of their influence on the current account deficit. To test this claim, this paper investigates the determinants of aggregate household savings using a panel of 18 developed countries for...