We use panel data at the household level on a complete inventory of household spending and assets to estimate the spending response to the sharp and largely unexpected declines in house and stock market prices that occurred in the Great Recession. Our data span the period 2001-2011, so that we...

"The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires that consumption be continuous over retirement; yet prior research based on partial measures of consumption or on synthetic panels indicates that spending drops at retirement, a result that has been called the retirement-consumption...