Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the US has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has increased...

This paper studies the structure and dynamics of consumption and consumption growth inequality. The theoretical framework is a heterogeneous agent model with stochastic labor endowments, where the group mean consumption serves as consumption externality. The main finding is that households'...

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the US has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has increased...

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the US has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has increased...

This Paper first documents the evolution of the cross-sectional income and consumption distribution in the US in the past 25 years. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey we find that a rising income inequality has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality....

In this paper, using an OLG model with heterogeneous households, we investigate economic inequality in the recent decades in Japan. We decompose the causes of economic inequality into macroeconomic factors and a demographic factor, and demonstrate that the earning inequality in the model...

This Paper explores the implications of the recent sharp rise in US wage inequality for welfare and the cross-sectional distributions of hours worked, consumption and earnings. From 1967 to 1996 cross-sectional dispersion of earnings increased more than wage dispersion, due to a rise in the...

Using an OLG model with heterogeneous households, we investigate the relationship among income risk, macroeconomic and demographic changes, and economic inequality between 1980 and 2000 in Japan. By decomposing the primary factors in earnings and consumption inequality into macroeconomic...

This paper discusses the links between earnings, consumption and economic welfare inequality. It places emphasis on the role of leisure and labor supply in the assessment of cross-household inequality and argues that the documented increase of such inequality has its origin in the labor market....