Individual Euler Equations Rather Than Household Euler Equations

This paper focuses on the identification and estimation of the intertemporal and intratemporal elasticities of substitution for the wife and separately for the husband using individual Euler equations. To that end, the household is represented as a group of agents making joint decisions. By means of this framework, individual Euler equations are derived and used to identify and estimate the parameters of interest. The main advantage of this approach is that the key parameters can be identified for all household members and not only for the household as a whole. To implement this approach it is essential to deal with an important issue: individual Euler equations depend on individual consumption which is not observable. In this paper it is shown that individual Euler equations are identified when only data on household consumption, individual labor supply and individual wages are observed. The identification strategy is then used to estimate the elasticities of substitution using the Consumer Expenditure Survey