While the empirical evidence tends to support some predictions of the life-cycle theory, a number of puzzles remain: an ageing-consumption, an ageing-saving, a saving-capitalisation and a saving-longevity puzzles have been put forward in the literature. This paper analyses the links between...

This paper analyses the impact of welfare systems and longevity on savings. It develops a life-cycle model embodying social transfers (health care and pension expenditures) and changes in longevity to determine the level of household savings. We simulated an aggregate saving equation and derived...

This paper demonstrates that dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) simulations can provide estimates of the economy-wide effects of industrial stoppages. Such estimates could be used in broad discussions of the contribution to economic welfare of improved industrial relations. They could...

Every year over 20 states offer sales tax holidays (STHs) on specific items like clothes, shoes and other items to encourage consumption, effecting over 100 million consumers. We use a unique dataset of credit cards transaction to study the spending response to these holidays. Using a...

Recent theoretical contributions have suggested consumption externalities, or peergroup effects, as a potential explanation for some of the puzzles in macroeconomics and finance. However, the empirical relevance of peer effects for intertemporal consumption choice is a completely open question....

Combining consensus forecasts of growth of population and real incomes during 2014-35 with household income surveys for more than a hundred countries accounting for the bulk of the world economy, we project the income distribution in 2035 across all individuals in the world. We find that the...

In this paper we explore the statistical properties of the distributions of consumption expenditures for a large sample of Italian households in the period 1989-2004. Goodness-of-fit tests show that household aggregate (and age-conditioned) consumption distributions are not log-normal. Rather,...

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....