The theory of intertemporal consumption choice makes sharp predictions about the evolution of the entire distribution of household consumption, not just about its conditional mean. In a first step, we study the empirical transition matrix of consumption using a panel drawn from the Bank of Italy...

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 uses panel data on household consumption and income to evaluate the degree of insurance to income shocks. Our aim is to describe the transmission of income inequality into consumption inequality. Our framework nests the special cases of self-insurance and the complete markets...

Most of the empirical literature on consumption behaviour over the last decades has focused on estimating Euler equations. However, there is now consensus that data-related problems make this approach unfruitful, especially for answering policy relevant issues. Alternatively, many papers have...

In this paper we examine the link between wage inequality and consumption inequality using a life cycle model that incorporates household consumption and family labor supply decisions. We derive analytical expressions based on approximations for the dynamics of consumption, hours, and earnings...

In this paper we examine the link between wage inequality and consumption inequality using a life cycle model that incorporates household consumption and family labour supply decisions. We derive analytical expressions based on approximations for the dynamics of consumption, hours, and earnings...

This paper provides an introduction to the special issue of the Review of Economic Dynamics on "Cross Sectional Facts for Macroeconomists''. The issue documents, for nine countries, the level and the evolution, over time and over the life cycle, of several dimensions of economic inequality,...

Most of the empirical literature on consumption behaviour over the last decades has focused on estimating Euler equations. However, there is now consensus that data-related problems make this approach unfruitful, especially for answering policy relevant issues. Alternatively, many papers have...