On average, young people underestimate whereas old people overestimate their chances to survive into the future. We employ a subjective survival belief model proposed by Ludwig and Zimper (2013), which can replicate these patterns. The model is compared with hyperbolic discounting within a...

We estimate the degree of 'stickiness' in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness...

We estimate the degree of "stickiness" in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness...

According to the permanent income hypothesis with quadratic preferences, savings should react only to transitory income shocks, but not to permanent shocks. The problem is that income shock components are not separately observable. I show how the combination of income realizations with...

Why do employees' retirement contributions gradually increase throughout their careers? This paper uses a structural life-cycle model based on household expectations data to explain workers' retirement contribution decisions. The Michigan Survey of Consumers data shows that young households...

On average young people "undersave" whereas old people "oversave" with respect to the rational expectations model of life-cycle consumption and savings. According to numerous studies on subjective survival beliefs, young people also "underestimate" whereas old people "overestimate" their...

I study the long-run behavior of an economy with two types of agents who differ in their beliefs and are endowed with homothetic recursive preferences of the Duffie-Epstein-Zin type. Contrary to models with separable preferences in which the wealth of agents with incorrect beliefs vanishes in...

I study the long-run behavior of an economy with two types of agents who differ in their beliefs and are endowed with homothetic recursive preferences of the Duffie-Epstein-Zin type. Contrary to models with separable preferences in which the wealth of agents with incorrect beliefs vanishes in...

How accurate are older people's expectations about their future Social Security benefits? Using panel data from the Health and Retirement Study, we compare respondents' observed Social Security claiming ages and benefits with subjective expectations provided during their 50s and early 60s. We...

On average, "young" people underestimate whereas "old" people overestimate their chances to survive into the future. We adopt a Bayesian learning model of ambiguous survival beliefs which replicates these patterns. The model is embedded within a non-expected utility model of life-cycle...