财富积累、习惯、偏好改变、不确定性与家庭消费决策

在本文中,我们建立了一个相当一般的分析家庭消费与储蓄跨期优化决策问题的理论框架。使用综合了家庭的当期消费、消费习惯、财富积累、偏好改变多种作用影响的效用函数,在家庭劳动收入具有不确定性的情况下,我们导出了家庭消费与储蓄跨期优化决策问题的闭式解,给出了家庭消费函数和欧拉方程的解析式。使用中国农村居民的住户调查数据对理论模型中导出的欧拉方程进行估计的结果表明,除了收入和家庭财富以外,消费习惯和预防性储蓄动机确实也都是影响我国农村居民家庭的消费与储蓄决策的重要因素。     

农村居民家庭资产与储蓄目的实证研究

居民资产选择多元化是我国经济增长、居民收入水平日益提高、财富迅速积累的必然结果。本文以扬州为例,分析了农村居民家庭资产总量和结构的变化,探讨了资产、收入和消费的关系,重点分析了农村居民家庭储蓄高企的原因,提出了优化居民资产选择、降低储蓄比重的建议。     

消费跨期替代中的财富传承偏好——理论模型与中国的证据

本文通过在经典消费跨期替代模型中引入财富代际传承因素,构建了适合我国居民家庭精神的中国式消费跨期替代选择模型,以我国1978—2008年的相关年度数据为样本,利用广义矩估计方法(GMM)分别对全国、城镇和农村居民的家庭财富传承偏好进行了估计,并对我国居民的消费选择行为进行了实证分析,分析结果表明:除农村居民外,中国式消费跨期替代模型能够得到实践的证实,城乡居民消费行为的选择存在明显的差别。最后,依据分析结论提出了相应的政策建议。     

改革开放以来农村居民消费行为变动与治理:重庆例证

收入敏感性、跨期消费选择和预防性储蓄动机是现代消费理论研究的三大基石,其所做的假设在中国也有一定的表现。本文以重庆为研究对象,考虑到消费假设在中国农村的适用性基础上,通过构建消费者行为分析的状态空间模型对农村居民消费行为变动特征进行了概念化探讨和动态分析。研究表明:重庆市农村居民消费存在收入敏感性,且改革开放以来呈现出波动下降的态势;从跨期消费上看,面对实际利率上涨农村居民倾向增加当前的消费而非储蓄;与此同时,农村居民消费不确定性的增强导致其预防性储蓄动机强度越来越大,但近年来有逐渐缩小的趋势。促进农村居民消费的治理政策仍需在经济、社会、文化、政治等领域同步推进,并实现政策的长期化与常态化。     

流动性约束和不确定性状态下的预防性储蓄研究-中国城乡居民的消费特征分析

该文利用我国城乡时间序列数据,对城乡居民的消费特征做了新的探索.我们对引入预期收入增长的对数线性欧拉方程和二阶泰勒近似的欧拉方程进行了估计,结果说明,当期收入仍是决定我国居民消费的主要因素,消费的随机游走假说不成立;城镇居民比农村居民有更强的预防性储蓄动机.1990年代中期以来持续走低的收入增长率直接抑制了消费需求的增长,而仍然偏紧的流动性约束和日益增强的不确定性增大了预防性储蓄动机.     

流动性约束和不确定性状态下的预防性储蓄研究-中国城乡居民的消费特征分析

该文利用我国城乡时间序列数据,对城乡居民的消费特征做了新的探索.我们对引入预期收入增长的对数线性欧拉方程和二阶泰勒近似的欧拉方程进行了估计,结果说明,当期收入仍是决定我国居民消费的主要因素,消费的随机游走假说不成立;城镇居民比农村居民有更强的预防性储蓄动机.1990年代中期以来持续走低的收入增长率直接抑制了消费需求的增长,而仍然偏紧的流动性约束和日益增强的不确定性增大了预防性储蓄动机.     

流动性约束和不确定性状态下的预防性储蓄研究——中国城乡居民的消费特征分析

本文利用我国城乡时间序列数据，对城乡居民的消费特征做了新的探索。我们对引入预期收入增长的对数线性欧拉方程和二阶泰勒近似的欧拉方程进行了估计，结果说明，当期收入仍是决定我国居民消费的主要因素，消费的“随机游走”假说不成立；城镇居民比农村居民有更强的预防性储蓄动机。1990年代中期以来持续走低的收入增长率直接抑制了消费需求的增长。而仍然偏紧的流动性约束和日益增强的不确定性增大了预防性储蓄动机。     

经济转轨与城镇化进程中的居民消费行为特征——对1396户城镇家庭的实证分析

基于中国9个省1396户城镇家庭的面板数据,运用系统广义矩估计法对一个包括习惯形成和不确定性的欧拉方程进行估计以考察家庭消费是否跨时演进,研究结果表明,偏好的设定偏误是传统的生命周期——持久收入模型不能很好地诠释中国城镇家庭消费决策的一个原因,在解释消费决策的影响因素时假定偏好的跨时可分性会得出错误的结论,城镇居民消费偏好的跨时不可分性以及由收入和支出不确定性引发的预防性储蓄动机是导致居民消费倾向持续偏低的重要原因。     

非正规制度、消费模式和代际交叠模型 --东方文化信念中居民消费特征的理论分析

传统的消费理论并没有将代际模型和财富存量模型相结合,而本文从社会习俗、道德习惯、家庭伦理等非正规制度的角度说明了中国等国家和地区居民消费和储蓄的特点,沿用和扩展了代际交叠模型,将遗赠(bequest)和赠予(gift)两方向收入转移以及财富偏好同时引入了经济主体的效用函数,用最优化条件来分析我国居民在消费和储蓄行为等方面的特征和存在的问题,进而阐述这些行为对政府宏观经济政策的影响,提出了一些相关的理论思考和政策建议     

中国居民家庭负债、消费增长与消费升级——基于CHFS的经验证据

本文基于中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)2015年与2017年数据,考察了中国家庭负债对居民家庭总支出和消费性支出的影响,以及这种影响在不同消费类型、不同收入群体以及城乡居民家庭消费中的差异.利用工具变量克服内生性偏误后的估计结果表明,中国居民家庭负债并不会显著促进或抑制居民家庭总支出和消费性支出,但却会强化家庭财富对消费的促进作用,削弱家庭收入对消费的促进作用.异质性分析显示,居民家庭负债会抑制发展和享乐型消费,强化发展与享乐型消费的财富消费效应.就对不同收入群体消费影响的差异而言,家庭负债对低收入家庭消费性支出的抑制作用和财富消费效应的强化作用均大于高收入家庭.这表明通过家庭负债来促进消费增长和升级并不是行之有效的途径,提高城镇居民的家庭总资产水平、低收入家庭与农村居民的家庭收入才能真正推动消费的增长与升级.     

(Un)expected retirement and the consumption puzzle

In this work we revisit the retirement consumption puzzle using Italian panel data. As emphasised in the literature, the observed consumption drop might be due to unexpected wealth shocks at retirement which modify optimal consumption plans. Using an Euler equation approach, we test the impact of unexpected retirement on the consumption patterns of individuals around the age of retirement by using the panel component of the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW). This dataset contains information on the expected age of retirement which can be used to distinguish between expected and unexpected retirement. Furthermore, we investigate the heterogeneous behaviour of individuals with different levels of education and wealth. We find evidence of a consumption drop at retirement especially for low educated people and individuals with little wealth. The consumption drop at retirement, on average, does not seem to be a response to unexpected retirement. Disaggregating our sample, we find that the consumption drop persists among low educated people with little wealth available, irrespective of whether retirement was expected or not. Highly educated people, conversely, do smooth their consumption, unless they have low wealth and are hit by an unexpected shock at retirement in which case they are forced to drop consumption.     

Stochastic optimization applied to self-financing portfolio: does bequest matter?

The article studies stochastic optimization of an intertemporal consumption model to allocate financial assets between risky and risk-free assets. We use a stochastic optimization technique, in which utility is maximized subject to a self-financing portfolio constraint. The papers in literature have estimated the errors of Euler equations using data from financial markets. It has been shown that it is sufficient to test the first order Euler equation implied by the model. However, they all assume a constant consumption–wealth ratio that constrains the boundary conditions, hence influencing the coefficient of the risk premium. The main contribution of our article is that we drop the assumption of a constant consumption–wealth ratio. We have an analytical solution using a utility maximization model with a stochastic self-financing portfolio. We introduce a terminal condition of wealth with and without bequests. We also simulate the stochastic optimization with a self-financing portfolio, distinguishing risk neutral investors (γ-low) from high risk averse investors (γ-high). We show that the model with bequest has a higher level of wealth and a smoother decline of consumption over time than the model with no bequest at the end of the period. The model with no bequest has the same level of consumption and a sharp fall at the end of the period. Risk averse agents with high return assets have a higher amount of wealth than risk-neutral agents with lower return assets.     

ESTIMATING TEMPTATION AND COMMITMENT OVER THE LIFE CYCLE

This article estimates the importance of temptation for consumption smoothing and asset accumulation in a life‐cycle model. We use two complementary estimation strategies: first, we estimate the model‐implied Euler equation; second, we match liquid and illiquid wealth accumulation using the method of simulated moments. In both cases, we find that the utility cost of temptation is one‐quarter of the utility benefit of consumption. Further, temptation is crucial for correctly estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS): EIS estimates are biased downward when ignoring temptation. Finally, the model only matches the share of illiquid wealth if temptation is in the preference specification.     

消费习惯、异质偏好与动态资产定价:纯交换经济情形

本文用Chan和Kogan、Bask和Cuoco等的方法考虑纯交换经济下的定价问题,我们引进了两个投资者:一个具有外在性消费习惯;一个不具有消费习惯。我们重点考察消费习惯对投资者的最优消费规则的影响以及对资产价格的确定。此外,我们还考虑了对数效用函数下,消费习惯以差的形式出现的情形下的消费规则和定价问题。我们发现当两个投资者中一个具有消费习惯而另一个不具有该习惯时,消费习惯同时改变两个投资者的最优消费规则、消费动态和财富动态。此时的动态资产定价受外在性消费习惯的影响,即时Sharpe比为常数,并等于同质量经济下的即时Sharpe比。同时,如果考虑对数效用函数下消费习惯以差的形式出现,则即时Sharpe比是时变的,反周期的。     

Wealth Breeds Decline: Reversals of Leadership and Consumption Habits

In a two-region model, we formalize Kindlebergers idea that wealth breeds first more wealth, and then decline: when one region leads, its inhabitants develop consumption habits incompatible with the necessary investment in knowledge to remain the leader. This gives the other region a window of opportunity to gain economic primacy. The theory suggests that differences across regions that have similar characteristics may persist even if physical capital flows from rich to poor regions. We study patterns of overtaking, alternating primacy, irreversible decline, and monotonic convergence, according to the initial dispersion of knowledge and the strength of consumption habits. Even though exogenous factors may matter on some occasions, we show that they are not necessary to reverse economic leadership.     

Fashion and wealth accumulation

Summary. This paper examines the influence of fashion on wealth accumulation in an economy with two groups of agents. Fashion is modelled as an externality generated by a particular dependence of individual agents' time preference on the two groups' per-capita consumption habits. It is shown that fashion causes excessive wealth fluctuations in the sense that stronger and more persistent fashion is more likely to generate limit cycles in wealth. Opposite to intuitive arguments , however, the externality in fashion does not necessarily generate instability in wealth. In a special case, equilibrium consumption and wealth are stable but the optimal ones that internalize the externality are locally unstable. Whether equilibrium consumption is excessive relative to optimal consumption depends on the distribution as well as the aggregate level of wealth. Received: December 15, 1995; revised version: July 21, 1998     

Sticky Consumption and Wealth Effects in Switzerland

When assessing the effect of changes in wealth on household expenditures, most empirical studies have used cointegration‐based approaches. These approaches rely on the existence of a stable long‐run relationship among consumption, wealth, and income. However, in Switzerland no such relationship seems to be present after 2001. Motivated by this issue, this paper applies a recently suggested approach to estimating long‐run wealth effects on consumption that does not rely on cointegration. This new approach relies on sticky consumption growth, which can be motivated by consumption habits or sticky expectations. In both cases, long‐run wealth effects are the result of short‐run reactions of households to changes in wealth which become long‐lasting. Using this methodology, the estimated wealth effects on consumption in Switzerland are larger than suggested by cointegration‐based estimates. Furthermore, the results show that there seems to be a remarkably high degree of consumption stickiness in Switzerland.     

Wealth effects on consumption in financial crises: the case of Norway

A dynamic consumption function, where consumption in the long run is determined by households’ disposable income and wealth, has been superior to the Euler equation in explaining the development of Norwegian aggregate consumption over several decades. This period covers the years of financial deregulation in the mid 1980s, the banking crisis around 1990 following the deregulation and the current international financial crisis. In the current version, long run consumption is homogeneous in income and wealth and there is also a significant effect from after-tax real interest rates. A change in the correlation pattern between real interest rates and wealth, which is related to a change in the monetary policy regime, is the reason why both variables need to be included in the long run relationship in order to explain the development over the period 2005q1–2008q4.     

Rational habit formation

This paper discusses consumer demand under rational habit formation. If consumer tastes change endogenously through habit stocks depending on past consumption, the rational consumer will make allowance of the future habit forming effects of current consumption. A model with rational habit formation is made formally equivalent to an intertemporal consumer model without habit formation by redefining the cost of consumption and wealth. The cost of consumption is obtained by adding the cost of future induced consumption to the rental price of the commodity. The extended wealth concept is obtained by subtracting the cost of the initial stocks of habits and the cost of future physically necessary consumption from wealth. The paper also investigates the implication of rational habit formation for constructing one period cost of living indices.     

Nonseparable preferences and optimal social security systems

In this paper, we consider economies in which agents are privately informed about their skills, which evolve stochastically over time. We require agents' preferences to be weakly separable between the lifetime paths of consumption and labor. However, we allow for intertemporal nonseparabilities in preferences like habit formation. In this environment, we derive a generalized version of the Inverse Euler Equation and use it to show that intertemporal wedges characterizing optimal allocations of consumption can be strictly negative. We also show that preference nonseparabilities imply that optimal differentiable asset income taxes are necessarily retrospective in nature. We show that under weak conditions, it is possible to implement a socially optimal allocation using a social security system in which taxes on wealth are linear, and taxes/transfers are history-dependent only at retirement. The average asset income tax in this system is zero.