This study shows that, in a model with non-separable preferences for durable and non-durable goods, the effect of relative prices on the ratio of consumption for the two goods, known as the intratemporal elasticity of substitution, has decreased in the U.S. since 1981. We found that durable and...

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...