The wealthy hand-to-mouth are households who hold little or no liquid wealth (cash, checking, and savings accounts), despite owning sizable amounts of illiquid assets (assets that carry a transaction cost, such as housing or retirement accounts). We use survey data on household portfolios for...

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...

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 autocorrelation, with a stickiness...

This paper finds declining consumption expenditure between paydays, for a typical household in the working population of the UK. The magnitude is inconsistent with exponential time preference, but compatible with quasi-hyperbolic discounting. However, the hyperbolic model predicts that credit...

This paper uses detailed diary information from the British Family Expenditure Survey (FES)to investigate the expenditure patterns of school-age children. We estimate a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, and find that, whilst most commodities are normal goods, sweets and toys are luxury items...

Many households hold little wealth, especially liquid wealth. In precautionary savings models, absent preference heterogeneity, these households should display not only higher marginal propensities to consume (MPCs), but also lower average propensities to consume (APCs) and higher future...

Over the last 15 years, the typical household has increasingly concentrated its spending on a few preferred products. However, this is not driven by "superstar" products capturing larger market shares. Instead, households increasingly purchase different products from each other. As a result,...

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 autocorrelation, with a stickiness...