This paper studies the empirical relevance of temptation and self-control using household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We construct an infinite-horizon consumption-savings model that allows, but does not require, temptation and self-control in preferences. In the presence of...

In order for consumption based asset pricing models to reconcile data on returns with that on consumption, researchers have resorted to augmenting the consumption series in exotic ways. When an agent’s consumption series is subject to changes in volatility, we show that concerns for model...

This paper derives a formula for the optimal forecast of a discounted sum of future values of a random variable. This problem reflects a preference for robustness in the presence of (unstructured) model uncertainty. The paper shows that revisions of a robust forecast are more sensitive to new...

Since World War II, about 75 percent of government consumption in the U.S. economy has been spent on labor services. I distinguish the goods and the employment compensation components of government consumption in assessing the effects of fiscal shocks on main macroeconomic variables. Identifying...

New Keynesian macroeconomic models have generally emphasized that expectations of future output are a key factor in determining current output. The theoretical motivation for such forward-looking behavior relies on a straightforward generalization of the well-known Euler equation for...

This paper uses household consumption data to investigate whether uninsurable idiosyncratic risk accounts for the equity premium. The analysis complements and extends prior empirical work by relaxing maintained assumptions about idiosyncratic income shocks. Following Mankiw (1986), the paper...

To explore the link between household consumption and wealth, we use a new source of harmonized microdata (Luxembourg Wealth Study). We investigate whether there are differences in wealth effects from different types of wealth and across age groups. We consider three countries: Canada, Italy and...

This paper derives a formula for the optimal forecast of a discounted sum of future values of a random variable. This problem reflects a preference for robustness in the presence of (unstructured) model uncertainty. The paper shows that revisions of a robust forecast are more sensitive to new...

This paper extends the work of Hansen and Jagannathan (1997) by showing how to decompose approximation errors in stochastic discount factor models by frequency. This decomposition is applied to a number of prominent consumption-based discount factor models top investigate how well they fit at...

New Keynesian macroeconomic models have generally emphasized that expectations of future output are a key factor in determining current output. The theoretical motivation for such forward-looking behavior relies on a straightforward generalization of the well-known Euler equation for...