In many research areas it is desirable to have information on household total expenditure ('consumption'). We draw evidence from several sources on the usefulness of recall consumption questions. We conclude that valid information can be collected by adding specific recall questions to general...

We use direct evidence on credit constraints to study their importance for household consumption growth and for welfare. We distentangle the direct effect on consumption growth of a currently binding credit constraints from the indirect effect of a potentially binding credit constraint which...

Baker and Benjamin (1995) analyse the receipt of unemployment insurance by immigrant men using two years of the Canadian Survey of Consumer Finances. This study replicates their research on 13 of the annual surveys. Estimates are found to be sensitive to the choice of survey years. Furthermore,...

A central implication of life-cycle models is that agents smooth consumption. We review the empirical evidence on smoothing at frequencies from within the year up to across a lifetime. We find that life-cycle models--particular those which incorporate realistic features of markets and...

We show that (Marshallian) income elasticities are proportional to (Frisch) own price elasticities if all goods are additively separable. This implies that luxuries are likely to be easier to postpone. It also implies that preferences over "consumption" are unlikely to display a constant...

The use of self assessed health status as a measure of health is common in empirical research. We analyse a unique Australian survey in which a random sub-sample of respondents answer a standard self assessed health question twice – before and after an additional set of health related...