Consumer Expenditure Survey (consumer + expenditure_survey)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


A Simple Test of Friedman's Permanent Income Hypothesis

ECONOMICA, Issue 289 2006
JOSEPH P. DEJUAN
Friedman's Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) predicts that the income elasticity of consumption should be higher for households for which a large fraction of the variation of their income is permanent than for households facing more transitory variations in income. We test this prediction using modern household data from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey. The results offer some support for the PIH. [source]


CREDIT CONSTRAINTS IN THE MARKET FOR CONSUMER DURABLES: EVIDENCE FROM MICRO DATA ON CAR LOANS,

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2008
Orazio P. Attanasio
We investigate the significance of borrowing constraints in the market for consumer loans. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey on auto loan contracts we estimate the elasticities of loan demand with respect to interest rate and maturity. We find that, with the exception of high income households, consumers are very responsive to maturity and less responsive to interest rate changes. Both elasticities vary with household income, with the maturity elasticity decreasing and the interest rate elasticity increasing with income. We argue that these results are consistent with the presence of binding credit constraints in the auto loan market. [source]


Estimation of the consumption CAPM with imperfect sample separation information

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FINANCE & ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2008
Andrei Semenov
Abstract We propose a consumption-based capital asset pricing model consumption (CAPM), in which the pricing kernel is calculated as the average of individuals' intertemporal marginal rates of substitution weighted by the probabilities of holding the asset in question. These probabilities are conditional on available imperfect sample separation information and are estimated simultaneously with the parameters of Euler equations. Using data from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey, we find that the consumption CAPM with probability-weighted agents yields a more precise estimate of the agent's risk aversion compared with the model, in which the available imperfect information on asset-holding status is erroneously regarded as a perfect sample separation indicator. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words?

JOURNAL OF MONEY, CREDIT AND BANKING, Issue 7 2009
Household Expectations of Inflation Based on Micro Consumption Data
inflation expectations; Consumer Expenditure Survey; Michigan Survey of Consumers; Survey of Professional Forecasters; Euler equation Survey data on household expectations of inflation are routinely used in economic analysis, yet it is not clear how accurately households are able to articulate their expectations in survey interviews. We propose an alternative approach to recovering households' expectations of inflation from their consumption expenditures. We show that these expectations measures have predictive power for consumer price index (CPI) inflation. They are better predictors of CPI inflation than household survey responses and more highly correlated with professional inflation forecasts, except for highly educated consumers, consistent with the view that more educated consumers are better able to articulate their expectations. We also document that households' inflation expectations respond to inflation news, as measured by the unpredictable component of inflation predictions in the Survey of Professional Forecasters. The response to inflation news tends to increase with households' level of education, consistent with the existence of constraints on household's ability to process this information. [source]