the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate the effect of reference consumption, defined as the consumption level of all … households who are perceived to be richer, on household savings and consumption. When controlling for own income as well as … unobserved individual and local area heterogeneity, an increase in reference consumption of 100 euros leads to an increase in …

contracts that triggers but also constrains conspicuous consumption. …

Based on the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), we show that household consumption drops and saving rises … significantly within four years after a child moves out of a household. Per capita consumption of parents is approximately leveled … up to that of childless peers after all children are gone. We conclude with respect to the adequacy of saving rates that …

fertile phase experience high unemployment rates. Based on these facts we investigate how marriage and fertility decisions in … likely to marry when they are unemployed during recession. Although we find effects on marriage we cannot observe any effects …

that additionally may prevent divorces by demonstrating the potential for Pareto-improvements within marriage to the …

Marriage is one of the most important determinants of economic prosperity, yet most existing theories of inequality … large marriage gap: married people earn on average 27 percent more income, and they hold 34 percent more net worth. To … bequests are key to explaining the marriage gap in earnings and wealth. A policy experiment of moving from joint tax filing for …

This paper tests whether the Ricardian Equivalence proposition holds in a life cycle consumption laboratory experiment … not hold in general. Our results suggest that taxation has a significant and strong impact on consumption choice. Over the … life cycle, a tax relief increases consumption on average by about 22% of the tax rebate. A tax increase causes consumption …