We document a decline in the frequency of shopping trips in the U.S. since 1980 and consider its implications for the measurement of consumption inequality. A decline in shopping frequency as households stock up on storable goods (i.e. inventory behavior) will lead to a rise in expenditure...

We analyse the decline of household saving rates in the bottom half of the income distribution in Germany since the 2000s, which allowed for only moderately increasing consumption inequality, despite sharply rising income inequality. We combine survey data on household consumption with our own...

We analyse the decline of household saving rates in the bottom half of the income distribution in Germany since the 2000s, which allowed for only moderately increasing consumption inequality, despite sharply rising income inequality. We combine survey data on household consumption with our own...

We analyse the decline of household saving rates in the bottom half of the income distribution in Germany since the 2000s, which allowed for only moderately increasing consumption inequality, despite sharply rising income inequality. We combine survey data on household consumption with our own...

Using Consumer Expenditure Survey data, we obtain summary measures of the distributions of income and consumption for each quarter between 1980 and 1994. We find that the trends in the distribution of income and consumption and the response of these trends to changes in inflation and...

This paper analyzes the distribution of household portfolios in Türkiye using a fresh data set, the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye - Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The empirical analysis concentrates on the motives behind household saving preferences and the distribution of...

Using household data from 1988 to 2018, we confirm that the increase in income inequality in China has come to a halt in recent years but show that inequality in wealth and consumption continues to increase. We report a clear convergence of inequality across the different dimensions of income,...

The consumption of households with liquid financial assets responds much more to transitory income shocks than the permanent-income hypothesis predicts. That is, middle class households with assets act as if they face liquidity constraints. This paper addresses this puzzling observation with a...

The effect of wealth on consumption is an issue of longstanding interest to economists. Analysts believe that fluctuations in household wealth have driven major swings in economic activity. This paper considers so-called wealth effects - the impact of changes in wealth on household consumption...

We use responses to survey questions in the 2010 Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth that ask consumers how much of an unexpected transitory income change they would consume. We find that the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is 48 percent on average, and that there is substantial...