The causal effect of income on life satisfaction and the implications for valuing non-market goods

Employing the life satisfaction approach to value physical health, this paper illustrates the use of a subset of windfall income (restricted windfall income) as a substitute for the more conventional household income monetary measure. Results provide no evidence against the exogeneity of restricted windfall income and indicate that the causal effect of income on life satisfaction is substantially higher (and willingness-to-pay estimates substantially lower) when restricted windfall income is used. Further research should be devoted to looking into the presence and size of measurement errors in restricted windfall income. If this bias is large, then the quest for valid and strong instruments will continue.     

The permanent income hypothesis and the real interest rate

A test of the permanent income hypothesis that allows a variable and uncertain real interest rate is derived. Using quarterly post-war U.S. data, the permanent income hypothesis is rejected.     

Why Do the Rich Save More? A Theory and Australian Evidence*

We provide a theory to explain the existence of inequality in an economy where agents have identical preferences and have access to the same production technology. Agents consume a ‘health’ good which determines their subjective discount factor. Depending on initial distribution of capital the economy gets separated into different permanent‐income groups. This leads to a testable hypothesis: ‘The rich save a larger proportion of their permanent‐income’. We test this implication for savings behaviour in Australia. We find that even after controlling for lifecycle and health characteristics, higher permanent income is positively related with higher savings rates and better saving habits.     

Child Benefit Payments and Household Wealth Accumulation

Using the life‐cycle/permanent income hypothesis, we theoretically and empirically assess the impact of child benefit payments on household wealth accumulation. Consistent with the predictions of the model, we find that higher cumulative benefits received increase current assets, higher future benefit payments lower asset holding, and that these effects systematically vary over the life cycle. We find different wealth responses to child benefit payments for liquidity constrained and unconstrained households, as predicted by the model.     

The permanent income hypothesis in underdeveloped economies:: Additional evidence

Laumas and Laumas find no support for the permanent income hypothesis in recent work on a consumption function for India. However, permanent income has been used not only in consumption but also in demand for money functions. Estimates of demand for money in 10 Asian LDCs indicate that substitution of permanent for current income is warranted. In particular, the estimate for India is improved substantially by the use of permanent instead of current income. Furthermore, the weights obtained from a polynomial lag distribution are almost identical to the Laumas' exponential weights with which they construct permanent income.     

The effect of household characteristics on saving behaviour and the theory of savings in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the household saving functions based on cross-section data which contain fruitful informations of individual observations. The paper also attempts to test various theories of saving behaviours empirically such as life-cycle saving hypothesis, or permanent income hypothesis, or several other theories. Since the data contain several useful variables which have not been used previously, particular attention is paid to the influence of those household characteristics on saving behaviour.     

The permanent income hypothesis and the real interest rate: Some evidence from panel data

A test of the permanent income hypothesis in panel data is formulated taking into account both the time-series and cross-section variation in the rate of return. The over-identifying restrictions of the theory rejected.     

中国居民消费与资产收益:基于收入群体的分析

The equity premium puzzle is found during the test of the Consumption-based Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM) with aggregate consumption data. Because of income disparity, many consumers lack financial assets to intertemporally allocate their consumptions under income constraints. Thus, it is likely to lead to a specification error by employing aggregate consumption data to test the CCAPM. This paper examines the impacts of the economically constrained (low-income) consumers and unconstrained (high-income) consumers on the CCAPM using urban consumption expenditures in China delineated by consumer income, and tests the income constraint hypothesis. The empirical results show that the CCAPM is not more consistent with the consumption pattern of the higher-income consumers. Including the income constraint into the analyses of the consumption and asset returns does not unravel the equity premium puzzle.      

Entrepreneurship, windfall gains and financial constraints: Evidence from Germany

We investigate the link between the propensity to become an entrepreneur and the exogenous release from financial constraints in Germany. This is defined in terms of the movement from employment to self-employment on receipt of a financial windfall. A theoretical framework developing Evans and Jovanovic (1989) is set up and tested with panel data from German households. The results show that financial constraints do exist given that individuals are more likely to start a personal business after receiving a windfall gain. The value of windfall gains has a significant but non linear effect on the decision to become self employed. The data reveal that differences in ability and income affect the change in employment status. We also report that there is no evidence that becoming self-employed involves the anticipation of windfall gains.     

生命周期假说在中国成立吗 ——兼论储蓄率的生命周期分布及其动态演变

通过使用中国家庭收入调查（CHIPS）数据,本文从储蓄率的角度,实证检验了生命周期/持久性收入假说在中国是否成立。实证结论表明,中国城市家庭的储蓄行为和生命周期/持久性收入假说的预测并不一致,且在不同时期,导致中国城市家庭储蓄率的生命周期分布特征的原因也不一样。对此,本文从教育、医疗、养老和住房等视角入手,解释了转型时期中国城市家庭储蓄率的生命周期分布特征及其动态演变模式的原因。     

RATIONAL CONSUMERS*

The life cycle/permanent income hypothesis (LCPIH) entails two postulates: People have rational expectations and people do not have problems with self‐control. If either or both of these postulates do not apply, we cannot obtain a testable implication for the LCPIH. We use Japanese representative panel data that include responses to self‐reported and retrospective questions in order to elicit behavior such as forward‐looking and self‐control problems. We test the rational expectations hypothesis and the LCPIH implication and find that rational consumers do not change their expenditure in response to expected income changes, which we restrict to fit the two LCPIH postulates.     

持久性收入对中国农民消费影响分析

运用弗里德曼的持久性收入假说分析我国农民的消费问题,并利用计量经济学的方法对中国历年农民消费统计数据进行分析,得出“持久性收入及持久性收入的边际消费倾向对我国现阶段农民消费支出影响较大”的结论,并从增加持久性收入和提高持久性收入的边际消费倾向两个方面就增加农民消费提出政策建议。     

THE IMPORTANCE OF ASSET INCOME AMONG THE ELDERLY*

This paper focuses on the income patterns among the elderly. The life cycle hypothesis suggests that income and assets will decline after retirement. Data from the 1980 U.S. decennial census confirms that total income declines for succeeding elderly cohorts. The census data, however, shows that income from assets for elderly cohorts increases until the cohort aged 85 years and older. This pattern is similar for different sex-marital groups. Recent research that has addressed the issue of savings among the elderly is summarized and four possible explanations for the increase in income from assets found in the decennial census are discussed. We conclude by suggesting the implications of this data for the life cycle theory and public policy.     

持久收入假说与我国城镇居民消费——基于省级面板数据的实证分析

运用基于持久收入和暂时收入的两种分解方法的省际面板模型检验持久收入假说的三个假设.结果发现,我国城镇居民消费与持久收入和暂时收入均存在显著的相关关系,暂时收入的边际消费倾向不为零;就诸省份而言,暂时收入的边际消费倾向不同.进一步探讨了持久收入假说不能完全解释我国城镇居民消费行为的原因."λ假说"检验表明,城镇居民消费对当期收入过度敏感,其呈现理性化趋势.     

国债融资能否影响居民消费需求——基于城镇居民经验数据的实证分析

“传统的政府债务观点”与“李嘉图等价观点”对国债融资的消费效应存在很大的争议.本文基于生命周期假说,将国债幻觉引入基本消费函数,区分私人部门持有的国债资产和其他资产两部分,运用中国宏观经济数据实证分析了国债对城镇居民消费的影响.实证结果表明:国债对城镇居民具有一定的“财富效应”;人均可支配收入仍是居民消费的基础;其他金融资产对城镇居民具有“负”的财富效应,而住房资产对城镇居民而言具有“正”的财富效应.     

THE FISCAL DIVIDEND MYTH OF AN INCOME/GST TAX SWITCH*

Reaping a windfall fiscal dividend from the taxation of the ‘underground’ economy's expenditures on ‘legitimate’ commodities is often seen as a significant advantage for a goods and services tax (GST) over an income tax. This claim ignores the changes in prices in the underground economy which would arise from the introduction of a GST. Employing a general equilibrium model which allows for tax evasion, we show that any ‘dividend’ arising from a change in the income tax/GST mix is equivalent to a rise in the income tax rate without a GST.     

The permanent income hypothesis in an underdeveloped economy

After a concise but critical survey of several tests of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH), the authors advance their own test for India using annual data from 1919–1960. It employs Friedman's technique for calculating the permanent value of a variable. Two different specifications of the model are tested, using different values of the consumer's ‘horizon.’ In almost all cases it is found that the marginal propensity to consume out of transitory income is very similar to the marginal propensity to consume out of permanent income. The authors conclude that even a looser variant of the PIH is not valid for India. However, no valid generalization with respect to the appropriate planning horizon can be made, for the PIH was almost equally invalid with a horizon of one, two and two-and-a-half years. The authors briefly discuss the policy implications of their results for the savings efforts in underdeveloped countries.     

Seasonality and the Life-cycle Permanent Income Hypothesis: Evidence for Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany

Intra-year observed consumption displays substantial seasonality. Consumers allocate their non-durable expenditure over the four quarters of the year, maximising total utility subject to the period-to-period budget constraint. Osborn (1988) derives a seasonally-varying utility function, for which Hall's (1978) consumption function implies a periodic autoregressive model with a unit root. Using quarterly seasonally unadjusted consumption for Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany, recently developed tests for seasonality and periodicity are used to examine the modified rational expectations life-cycle permanent income hypothesis and to reinforce previous findings in the literature. Seasonal habit persistence is introduced as an alternative model and its empirical adequacy is found to be significant. Finally, a multivariate test of the excess sensitivity puzzle excludes a predictive role for lagged income changes.     

Empirical proxies for the consumption–wealth ratio

Using a log-linearized approximation to an aggregate budget constraint, it is possible to show that the ratio of consumption to total (human and non-human) wealth summarizes agents' expectations concerning both future labor income and future asset returns. In a series of recent papers, Lettau and Ludvigson construct an empirical analogue to the consumption–wealth ratio by approximating total wealth with a linear combination of labor income and observable non-human wealth. If valid, this framework suggests that consumption, assets, and labor income will be cointegrated. We demonstrate, however, that standard tests fail to reject the hypothesis of no cointegration once one employs measures of consumption, assets, and labor income that are jointly consistent with an underlying budget constraint. We also show that deviations of consumption, assets, and income from an estimated common trend are unable to predict future excess returns on stocks out of sample once theoretically consistent measures are used.