We argue that the U.S. personal saving rate's long stability (1960s-1980s), subsequent steady decline (1980s-2007), and recent substantial rise (2008-2011) can be interpreted using a parsimonious 'buffer stock' model of consumption in the presence of labor income uncertainty and credit...

This paper uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to provide some of the first direct evidence that wealth is systematically higher for consumers with greater income uncertainty. However, the apparent pattern of precautionary saving is not consistent with a standard parameterization of the life...

Today's dominant strain of macroeconomic models supposes that aggregate consumption can be understood by assuming the existence of a 'representative agent' whose behavior rationalizes observed outcomes. But representative agent models yield embarrassingly implausible (and empirically inaccurate)...