This paper examines trends in household consumption and saving behaviour in each of the last three recessions in the UK. The ‘Great Recession’ has been different from those that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. It has been both deeper and longer, but also the composition of the cutbacks in...

The combination of credit constraints and indivisible consumption goods may induce some risk-averse individuals to gamble to have a chance of crossing a purchasing threshold. One implication of this is that income effects for individuals who choose to gamble are likely to be larger than for the...

The aim of this paper is to understand what a recession means for individual consumers, and to model in a life-cycle framework how individuals respond to recessions. Our focus is on the sharp increase in savings rates that have been observed in the current and recent recessions. We show...

This paper examines trends in household consumption and saving behaviour in each of the last three recessions in the UK. The 'Great Recession' has been different from those that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. It has been both deeper and longer, but also the composition of the cutbacks in...

The aim of this paper is to understand what a recession means for individual consumers, and to model in a life-cycle framework how individuals respond to recessions. Our focus is on the sharp increase in savings rates that have been observed in the current and recent recessions. We show...

The aim of this paper is to understand what a recession means for individual consumers, and to model in a life-cycle framework how individuals respond to recessions. Our focus is on the sharp increase in savings rates that have been observed in the current and recent recessions. We show...

This paper examines trends in household consumption and saving behaviour in each of the last three recessions in the UK. We identify several dimensions along which the most recent recession (the so-called 'Great Recession') has been different from those that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s....

The combination of credit constraints and indivisible consumption goods may induce some riskaverse individuals to play lotteries to have a chance of crossing a purchasing threshold. One implication of this is that income effects for individuals who choose to play lotteries are likely to be...

We specify an equilibrium model of car ownership with private information where individuals sell and purchase new and second-hand cars over their life-cycle. Private information induces a transaction cost and distorts the market reducing the value of a car as a savings instrument. We estimate...

Household borrowing and spending rise with house prices, particularly for leveraged households, but household spending is not consumption. We propose an alternative borrow-to-invest channel by which house price gains affect household spending on residential investment. We show that rational,...