This paper examines the structure and evolution of consumption and consumption growth inequality. Once heterogeneous agents relate their neighbors' consumption to their own, consumption volatility and inequality are affected. The relationship predicted between the group average consumption...

Traditional political economy models of taxation fail to explain why there is so little redistribution of wealth despite significant wealth inequalites. This is for two reasons: (1) The median voter approach cannot deal with a multidimensional policy-space and (2) wealth taxation affects...

We estimate the degree of ‘stickiness’ in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of auto-correlation, with a stickiness...