The consumption Euler equation is a building block of modern macro theory. Yet, the existing evidence on aggregate data offers very conflicting results for the estimates of the degree of forward-lookingness and interest rate semi-elasticity. The disappointing performance can be rationalized by...

A method of testing the relative importance for consumption of full insurance behaviour and changes in income is proposed and estimated using data across Canadian provinces. The focus of the estimation is less on whether or not the full insurance model can be rejected than on how much each of...

We analyse the welfare implications of liquidity constraints for households in an overlapping generations model with growth. In a closed economy with exogenous technical progress, liquidity constraints reduce welfare if the economy is dynamically inefficient. But if it is dynamically efficient,...

In the context of an overlapping generations model, we show that liquidity constraints on households: (i) raise the saving rate; (ii) strengthen the effect of growth on saving; and (iii) increase the growth rate if productivity growth is endogenous. These propositions are supported by...

If some consumers are liquidity-constrained, aggregate consumption should be ‘excessively sensitive’ to credit conditions as well as to income. Moreover, the ‘excess sensitivity’ may vary over time. Using data for Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, we find a...

Motivated by the success of internal habit formation preferences in explaining asset-pricing puzzles, we introduce these preferences in a life-cycle model of consumption and portfolio choice with liquidity constraints, undiversifiable labour income risk and stock-market participation costs. In...

Using a long span of expenditure survey data and a new narrative measure of exogenous income tax changes for the United Kingdom, we show that households with mortgage debt exhibit large and persistent consumption responses to tax changes. Home-owners without a mortgage, in contrast, do not...

This Paper solves numerically for the optimal consumption and portfolio choice of an infinitely lived investor facing short sales and borrowing constraints, undiversifiable labour income risk and a predictable time varying equity premium. The investor aggressively times the market while positive...

In this paper, we consider a dynamic economy in which the agents are privately informed about their skills, which evolve stochastically over time in an arbitrary fashion. We consider an asset pricing equilibrium in which equilibrium quantities are constrained Pareto optimal. Under the assumption...

The paper surveys and extends recent results on the effect of changes in government fiscal and financial policy, and in private savings behaviour, on economic growth. Private saving behaviour is represented by an overlapping generations (OLG) model. The supply side of the model permits...