This paper analyzes the impact of the age structure of the population on the household saving rate using time-series data for Japan for the 1955-2019 period. It finds that there is a cointegrating relationship between Japan's household saving rate and her dependency ratio (the ratio of the...

This paper studies household consumption behavior when saving motives differ due to preference or income risk heterogeneity. I show that self-insurance operates along two margins: a standard liquidity margin determined by the level of current resources and an intertemporal margin governed by...

Earnings uncertainty is central to most heterogeneous-household models. Yet, there is little evidence on how subjective uncertainty, the uncertainty individuals actually perceive, is related to consumption behavior. Using unique data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations, we show that the...

Earnings uncertainty is central to most heterogeneous-household models. Yet, there is surprisingly little evidence on how subjective uncertainty is related to consumption behavior. Using unique data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations, we show that the marginal propensity to consume (MPC)...

Earnings uncertainty is central to most heterogeneous-household models. Yet, there is surprisingly little evidence on how subjective uncertainty is related to consumption behavior. Using unique data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations, we show that the marginal propensity to consume (MPC)...

We show how tax kinks can be used to estimate the marginal propensity to consume (MPC). Tax kinks create discrete changes in the relationship between taxable income and disposable income, which - under a set of testable assumptions - enables causal identification of the spending response to...

We set up a life cycle model with real interest rate risk to demonstrate that real interest rates have implications for optimal household consumption and investments. Lower interest rates lead to higher optimal stock investments and lower consumption. Ignoring the time-varying nature of real...

We study the evolution of consumption expenditure and its distribution over the life-cycle. We estimate age and cohort effects relying on household-level consumption survey data, reaching several conclusions. First, we find significant differences in durable and nondurable life-cycle consumption...

Using detailed micro data, we document that households often use "stimulus" checks to pay down debt, especially those with low net wealth-to-income ratios. To rationalize these patterns, we introduce a borrowing price schedule into an otherwise standard incomplete markets model. Because interest...

We estimate the unconditional distribution of the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) using clustering regression applied to the 2008 economic stimulus payments. By deviating from the standard approach of estimating MPC heterogeneity using interactions with observables, we can recover the full...