The rise in within-group consumption inequality in response to the increase in within-group income inequality over the last three decades in the U.S. is puzzling to expected-utility-based incomplete market models. The two-sided lack of commitment models exhibit too little consumption inequality...

In this paper, we document that households’ consumption expenditures depend on their expected earnings - even after controlling for realized earnings and wealth. To explain this evidence, we develop and structurally estimate a standard-incomplete markets model in which rational households...

This paper investigates whether assuming that households possess advance information on their income shocks helps to overcome the difficulty of standard models to understand consumption insurance in the US. As our main result, we find that the quantitative relevance of advance information...

We investigate whether US households possess advance information about their future income and what this means for consumption insurance.Based on insights from a theoretical model, we propose a new test to detect advance information, which requires only panel data on consumption and income.Using...

This paper investigates whether assuming that households possess advance information on their income shocks helps to overcome the difficulty of standard models to understand consumption insurance in the US. As our main result, we find that the quantitative relevance of advance information...

We investigate whether US households possess advance information about their future income and what this means for consumption insurance. Based on insights from a theoretical model, we propose a new test to detect advance information, which requires only panel data on consumption and income....