I study the effects of borrowing and liquidity constraints on the response of consumption toanticipated income changes. Using the PSID over 1999–2013, I find that the well-documentedstrong excess sensitivity of consumption to income of highly constrained households can beexplained by episodes...

In dieser Analyse schätzen wir den Einfluss von Gewohnheits-(Habits) gegenüber Vergleichsmotiven (Envy) zur Erklärung des Konsumverhaltens US-amerikanischer Haushalte. Wir verwenden Daten der seit August 2013 erhältlichen Konsumerhebungen des Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) für den...

This paper investigates the presence and strength of internal and external habit formation in consumption, using monthly household data. The habit hypothesis is used to explain empirical regularities in macroeconomics and finance. Empirical studies based on aggregate data (macro-evidence) leave...

We demonstrate that interpersonal comparisons lead to "keeping up with the Joneses"-behavior. Using annual household data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate the causal effect of changes in reference consumption, defined as the consumption level of all households who are perceived...

We use information on monthly wage increases set by collective agreements in Italy and exploit their variation across sectors and over time in order to examine how household consumption responds to different types of positive income shocks (regular tranches versus lump-sum payments). Focusing on...

In this paper, we estimate the behavior of private consumption in Cote d’Ivoire under the permanent income hypothesis using annual data for the period 1970–2016. The first objective is to test the validity of the permanent income hypothesis in Cote d’Ivoire. Our second concern is to...

A number of recent studies have concluded that consumer spending patterns over the month are closely linked to the timing of income receipt. This correlation is interpreted as evidence of hyperbolic discounting. I re-examine patterns of spending in the diary sample of the U.S. Consumer...

We use information on monthly wage increases set by collective agreements in Italy and exploit their variation across sectors and over time in order to examine how household consumption responds to different types of positive income shocks (regular tranches versus lump-sum payments). Focusing on...

We follow Fuhrer (2000) in estimating via Maximum Likelihood a log-linear consumption function on UK data. In doing so we consider various habit formation assumptions. We show that a model of purely “external” habits as in Fuhrer (2000) fits the UK data remarkably well, and possibly in a...

We follow Fuhrer (2000) in estimating via Maximum Likelihood a log-linear consumption function on UK data. In doing so we consider various habit formation assumptions. We show that a model of purely external habits as in Fuhrer (2000) fits the UK data remarkably well, and possibly in a superior...