This paper proposes and analyzes a life-cycle model of consumption by couples. The model is considerably more complicated than the standard model for singles because it has to account for the welfare of a surviving spouse. The determinants of consumption are the survival paths of each spouse,...

The theory of home production suggests substitutability between market consumption and home production. The current paper estimates the intratemporal elasticity between home production and market consumption from within-person variation. Shocks in houseprices induced by the Great Recession are...