Stylized facts show that the average growth rates of US per capitaconsumption and income differ in recession and expansion periods.Since a linear combination of such series does not have to be a constant meanprocess, standard cointegration analysis between the variables, toexamine the permanent...

This paper explores the link between trade structure, trade specialization and per capita incomegrowth. It is argued that industrial upgrading in export specialization patterns has a positive long-rungrowth effect, while the effect of structural change in industrial import patterns is in...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of MiltonFriedman's permanent income hypothesis from the 1940s to 1960s, andhow it became the paradigm of modern consumption theory. Modellingunobservables, such as permanent income and permanent consumption, isa long-standing issue in...

This paper focuses on the role of habit formation in individual preferencesover consumption and saving. We closely relate to Alessie and Lusardi's(1997) model as we estimate a model which is based on their closed-formsolution, where saving is expressed as a function of lagged saving and...

Since the beginnings of the eighties house prices in the Netherlands haveincreased steadily and considerably. In this paper we study the effect of this developmenton the demand for second mortgages and on the savings of Dutch households. We use the dataof the Dutch socio-economic panel for the...