Was the increase in income inequality in the US due to permanent shocks or merely to an increase in the variance of transitory shocks? The implications for consumption and welfare depend crucially on the answer to this question. We use CEX repeated cross-section data on consumption and income to...

In this paper, we revisit the issue of excess sensitivity of consumption to income and address the weak instrument problem that is well documented in this literature. Using quarterly data for the U.S. economy, we first highlight the weak instrument problem by showing that the use of conventional...

Milton Friedman's permanent income hypothesis implies that data on savings help forecast future income growth. An econometric model that exploits this implication predicts that the U.S. economy will continue to expand in 1995