We measure the extent of consumption insurance to income shocks accounting for high-order moments of the income distribution. We derive a nonlinear consumption function, in which the extent of insurance varies with the sign and magnitude of income shocks. Using PSID data, we estimate an...

This paper explores the statistical properties of household consumption-expenditure budget share distributions — defined as the share of household total expenditure spent for purchasing a specific category of commodities — for a large sample of Italian households in the period 1989-2004. We...

To provide a more exible workhorse model of temporary price reductions or "sales", this paper presents a substantially generalized "clearinghouse" sales framework. Our framework permits multiple dimensions of firm heterogeneity, and views firms as competing directly in utility rather than...