This paper describes the transmission of income inequality into consumption inequality and in so doing investigates the degree of insurance to income shocks. It combines panel data on income from the PSID with consumption data from repeated CEX cross-sections and distinguishes between permanent...

This paper places the debate over using consumption or income in studies of inequality growth in a formal intertemporal setting. It highlights the importance of permanent and transitory income uncertainty in the evaluation of growth in consumption inequality. We derive conditions under which the...

In this paper we consider estimation of the autoregressive error components model. When the autoregressive parameter is moderately large and the number of time series observations is moderately small, the usual Generalised Methods of Moments (GMM) estimator obtained after first differencing has...

In this paper we develop the collective labour supply framework to allow for corner solutions and nonparticipation in employment.We derive conditions for the complete non parametric identification of individual preferences.We extend our results to allow for unobserved heterogeneity and show...

A model is developed that allows for a lay-off rate and a job arrival rate in the intertemporal choice of consumption and labor market state. The identification of such a model is established without recourse to dynamic programming solutions and the minimum date requirements for estimation are...

This paper applies revealed preference theory to the nonparametric statistical analysis of consumer demand. It exploits the idea that price-taking individual households in the same market face the same relative prices, in order to smooth across the demands of individuals for each common price...

In this paper the authors describe the household wealth distribution in the U.S. and the U.K., and compare both wealth inequality and the form in which wealth is held. Unconditionally, there are large differences in financial wealth between the two countries at the top fifth of the wealth...

The exact measurement of the welfare costs of tax and price reform requires a detailed knowledge of individual preferences. Typically, first-order approximations of welfare costs are calculated avoiding detailed knowledge of substitution effects. The authors derive second-order approximations...