Intertemporal substitution and random changes in preferences: Time series evidence for four countries

This study attempts to estimate a model of intertemporal substitution taking into account serially correlated changes in preferences with quarterly aggregate time series data for the USA, Great Britain, West Germany and Switzerland. Thereby, necessary optimality conditions representing the trade-offs between present and future consumption, present and future leisure, as well as present consumption and leisure are estimated using the forward-filtered estimator of Hayashi and Sims. The estimation results obtained for the dynamic optimality conditions reject the model formulated. The analysis of the static optimality conditions gave more satisfactory results with respect to intertemporal substitution elasticity in consumption.     

Are government bonds net wealth? intertemporal optimization and the government budget constraint

Full integration of the government sector's intertemporal budget constraint into the private sector's intertemporal budget constraint implies the Ricardian equivalence proposition associated with Barro (1974) is valid. Private sector holdings of government bonds are not net wealth. Previous tests of the equivalence proposition estimate Keynesian consumption relationships augmented by alternative measures of government liabilities. Decisive results have not been obtained. The test presented here uses a formulation of the permanent income model to test the integration of the government's intertemporal budget constraint into the private sector's intertemporal budget constraint. The explicit use of a forward looking model of consumption imposes constraints on the equation estimated and on construction of the data; the present test is a significant improvement. The results of this test do not support the equivalence proposition.     

Intertemporal consumption with directly measured welfare functions and subjective expectations

Euler equation estimation of intertemporal consumption models requires many, often unverifiable assumptions. These include assumptions on expectations and preferences. We aim at reducing some of these requirements by using direct subjective information on respondents’ preferences and expectations. The results suggest that individually measured welfare functions and expectations have predictive power for the variation in consumption across households. Furthermore, estimates of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution based on the estimated welfare functions are plausible and of a similar order of magnitude as other estimates found in the literature. The model favored by the data only requires cross-section data for estimation.     

Banking and the role of money in the business cycle

This paper enriches a standard New Keynesian model with a simple banking sector to investigate the role of money in the business cycle. Maximum likelihood estimation of the model suggests that money balances play a significant role in explaining the intertemporal allocation of consumption and the dynamics of inflation as described by the forward-looking IS and Phillips curves. Nonetheless, the responses of the model’s variables to shocks remain qualitatively similar to a model without money, suggesting that the omission of money balances leaves the model’s transmission mechanism unaffected.     

Dynamics of female labour force participation in France

This article formulates and estimates a structural intertemporal model of labour force participation. Relying on theoretical characterizations derived from an economic model of lifetime behaviour, we estimate a dynamic probit model with correlated random effects using longitudinal data to allow for a dynamic structure. The model is applied to a panel of married women drawn from the 1997–2002 French Labour Force surveys in order to represent their participation behaviour. It is estimated by maximum simulated likelihood. Our results show that women’s decisions to go out to work are characterized by significant state dependence, unobserved heterogeneity and negative serial correlation in the transitory error component. In addition, we find that the presence of young children in a woman’s household reduces her labour participation, but unequally according to their age and number. As expected, educational level has a positive impact on women’s participation. Last, a rise in the husband’s wage is found to raise female participation initially and to lower it subsequently. This empirical finding suggests that leisure may not systematically be a normal good, contrary to what is frequently assumed in the literature.     

Intertemporal production and intertemporal substitution in output supply and input demand

This article presents an intertemporal model of production with multiple inputs to investigate substitution opportunities facing firms over time. The firm’s intertemporal profit maximization problem is characterized with the familiar cost function, and various intertemporal substitution elasticities are delineated for output supply and input demand. The absence of intertemporal substitution in production can imply production smoothing, and allowance for intertemporal substitution in labour demand reinforces the prediction of the real business cycle model. For aggregate US manufacturing, we find substantial substitution in output supply and labour demand over time due to intertemporal changes in output price and wage rates.     

Empirical demand systems incorporating intertemporal consumption dynamics

This article presents and estimates demand systems by explicitly incorporating intertemporal consumption behavior as summarized by the Euler equation. Demand systems are characterized by two indirect utility functions which are effectively globally regular and can better approximate nonlinear Engel curves. Furthermore, an exact and nonlinear Euler equation is derived without a log approximation. This equation is estimated jointly with the demand functions by a careful implementation of the orthogonality conditions using generalized method of moments. We illustrate the techniques by estimating the demand system and Euler equation for Australian aggregate data. Results generally indicate that the proposed methods are promising. The estimated rate of time preference is fairly small while the restrictions producing the moment equations are not rejected. Estimated Frisch price elasticities, which are relevant in an intertemporal setting, appear reasonable, and the intertemporal elasticity of substitution for consumption is found to be small, which are consistent with the findings in earlier studies.     

Rural to Urban Migration as a Household Decision: Evidence from Kenya

A simple intertemporal expected-utility model for the household is developed to explore the determinants of split and family migration. Split migration occurs when the household head moves from a rural to an urban area first, and the rest of the family remains behind to join him later. Family migration occurs when the household moves together. The validity of the theoretical model is tested using data from Kenya. The findings support the predictions of the theoretical model; specifically, the results suggest that a large number of dependents may increase the likelihood of split migration.     

Inter-temporal choices with temporal reference dependence

I develop an intertemporal choice model for rational deviators whose preferences depend not only on their actual consumption but also on comparison to their beliefs about the optimal consumption. The standard decision maker is loss averse with respect to this belief-dependent reference point. When psychologically weighted loss aversion is low, a decision maker deviates from the standard intertemporal choice behavior and over-consumption, as well as the alternative possibility of under-consumption can be rationalized. When the decision maker has time-varying degrees of loss aversion, he re-optimizes the consumption plan through adjusted beliefs as subsequent selves realize that past decision for the present period is no longer optimal. In the dynamic model, I solve for consistent intertemporal optimization rules by which a dynamic deviator should meet rational intertemporal consistency at each point in time. Finally, I demonstrate that the dynamic reference dependent model can solve a puzzling feature in lifecycle consumption data.     

贸易失衡演进历史的国际比较——基于跨时贸易视角的分析

从跨时贸易的视角来看,贸易顺差、逆差的转换是一国跨时贸易模式变化的结果。当期生产能力强、未来生产能力弱时,一国跨时贸易的模式是出口当期产品,进口未来产品,贸易出现顺差;当期生产能力弱、未来生产能力强时,一国跨时贸易的模式是进口当期产品,出口未来产品,贸易出现逆差。跨时贸易模式主要受跨时比较优势的影响,跨时比较优势的变化与一国的技术优势、经济发展阶段、劳动力成本、国际分工地位以及产业结构的演变密不可分。各国贸易失衡的演进历吏与跨时贸易理论相符。     

Intertemporal choice of marine ecosystem exploitation

Exploitation of the marine ecosystem brings with it an intertemporal choice: there is a choice of catching the fish today, or restrain from fishing with the option of an increase in the benefit from future harvest. In a marine ecosystem under common pool management regime the contribution margin from catching the fish belongs to the fisher, while the benefit from the investment of leaving the fish in the sea will be shared in the common pool. The intertemporal choice therefore creates a driver for short sighted use of the ecosystem. The intertemporal balance of the exploitation is analyzed by applying capital theory to a size-based ecosystem model. The model reveals a need for intertemporal balance with respect to both fish size and harvest volume. The management therefore is, at an ecosystem level, to set target and regulate not only harvest volume but also size.     

Modeling intertemporal general equilibrium: An application to Austrian commercial policy

We present a multi-sector CGE model featuring forward looking investiment and savings behavior within an intertemporal optimization framework. Thus, the model captures several of the intertemporal effects of commercial policy that have been stressed by recent literature on current account adjustment. We argue that pursuing a simulation approach in addressing these issues is warranted by certain limitations and ambiguities of the analytical literature. In addition to presenting the details of the model structure, the paper addresses calibration issues relating to intertemporal parameters. The model is calibrated to a microconsistent data set for the Austrian economy. Finally, the paper features an application of the model to a simple tariff liberalization scenario.     

Imperfect capital markets and life-cycle consumption

This paper develops a long-range consumption planning model which, unlike conventional life-cycle theory, admits a disparity between borrowing and lending rates of interest. It is shown that, when capital markets are imperfect, optimal consumption depends not only upon an arithmetic average of the household's intertemporal income distribution, the traditional life-cycle income variable, but also upon current income and higher-order moments of that income distribution. The consumption function is estimated using the 1967–1968 CEDE budget survey of four major Colombian cities. A test is made to determine whether the assumption of perfect capital markets is acceptable for empirical approximation. The results strongly indicate that, for households in middle and lower income classes, the explanatory power of the consumption function can be raised by introducing a more flexible life- time budget constraint. The model is then estimated and used to compute the marginal consumption responses of Colombian households to transitory and permanent income changes.     

Debt Neutrality and the Infinite–Lived Representative Consumer

In this paper, we study the intertemporal equilibria of an infinite–lived representative agent model with public debt. We show that for a given path of government expenditures, there generally exists a continuum of equilibria depending on various debt policies. These equilibria are characterized by different paths of consumption and leisure. Two examples illustrate the results: in the first one consumption and leisure may converge to zero, in the second one consumption goes to infinity while leisure goes to its maximum value. In a third example with externalities à la Romer, the standard intertemporal equilibrium with zero public debt may be dominated by other intertemporal equilibria.     

Private consumption behaviour, liquidity constraints and financial deregulation in France: a nonlinear analysis

This paper examines the effect of financial deregulation on consumption expenditure in France during the period 1970–1993. A nonlinear model for consumption which allows for liquidity constraints through a time-varying parameter dependent on a proxy for financial deregulation is estimated using nonlinear instrumental variables. It is concluded that in France financial deregulation has significantly reduced liquidity constraints faced by consumers, allowing a higher percentage of the population to smooth consumption over time. Evidence is also provided that the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is not significantly different from zero at conventional nominal levels of significance. First version received: January 1997/final version received: May 1999     

Adjustment costs and time-to-build in factor demand in the U.S. manufacturing industry

In order to explain cyclical behavior of factor demand, the static neoclassical model of the firm has been extended to include either adjustment costs (e.g. Lucas (1967)) or time-to-build considerations as in Kydland and Prescott (1982). This paper presents an intertemporal factor demand model which accounts for adjustment costs and gestation lags. The closed form solution of the model is a highly restricted vector ARMA-process that is estimated using quarterly data for the manufacturing industry in the U.S., 1960–1988. The main conclusion is that both sources of dynamics of factor demand are identifiable and found to be empirically of importance.     

COMPARING ECONOMIC WELL-BEING AMONG ELDERLY AMERICANS

Income-only and income-net worth measures of elderly economic well-being are derived from a single public welfare function-optimizing model of household production and intertemporal resource allocation. These measures are estimated with data on United States elderly in 1984 from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. The income-net worth measure also incorporates independently estimated work-life expectancies and earnings replacement rates. Under both measures, minority, moderately disabled, and unmarried female elderly are the poorest sub-populations. Increasing poverty with age is found under the income-only measure, but not the income-net worth measure.     

Intertemporal labor supply and involuntary unemployment

We estimate a model of intertemporal male labor supply behavior which explicitly accounts for the effect of income taxation and the transfer system. Moreover, we model the demand-side driven rationing risk that prevents agents from choosing the optimal labor supply state. Our results show that elasticities derived in an unconstrained pure choice model are significantly higher compared to a model with involuntary unemployment. This holds true for short-run and long-run labor supply elasticities.     

Robust portfolio rules and detection-error probabilities for a mean-reverting risk premium

I analyze the optimal intertemporal portfolio problem of an investor who worries about model misspecification and insists on robust decision rules when facing a mean-reverting risk premium. The desire for robustness lowers the total equity share, but increases the proportion of the intertemporal hedging demand. I present a methodology for calculation of detection-error probabilities, which is based on Fourier inversion of the conditional characteristic functions of the Radon-Nikodym derivatives. The quantitative effect of robustness is more modest than in i.i.d. settings, because model discrimination between the benchmark and the worst-case alternative model is easier, as indicated by the detection-error probabilities.     

Rethinking Deviations From Uncovered Interest Parity: the Role of Covariance Risk and Noise

We examine the ability of the standard intertemporal asset pricing model and a model of noise trading to explain why the forward foreign exchange premium predicts the future currency depreciation with the 'wrong' sign. We find that the intertemporal asset pricing model is unable to predict risk premia with the correct sign to be consistent with the data. The noise-trader model, while highly stylised, receives fragmentary support from empirical research on survey expectations.