Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-16T17:23:47.266Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Household Consumption and Saving

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2023

Peter Skott
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Get access

Summary

Behavioral economics has demonstrated deviations from the perfect optimization depicted in standard models. Some deviations are trivial and irrelevant for macroeconomics. Others, however, are systematic and affect aggregate outcomes, including aggregate household saving. Pervasive uncertainty and the influence of ‘nudging’ on household retirement saving cast doubt on models of saving that are based on strict optimization and rational expectations. Behavioral evidence also points to possible reasons for under-saving. The well-documented existence of ‘present bias’, not surprisingly, can reduce saving, and simple models demonstrate that peer effects on consumption can also have this effect. Macroeconomic relations should indeed reflect microeconomic behavior and macroeconomics must be ‘behavioral’. But the specification of consumption in contemporary macroeconomic models is based on misleading assumptions about microeconomic behavior. The modeling of aggregate consumption must build on behavioral evidence, address aggregation issues, and consider structural constraints, including credit rationing.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Household Consumption and Saving
  • Peter Skott, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • Book: Structuralist and Behavioral Macroeconomics
  • Online publication: 10 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009367349.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Household Consumption and Saving
  • Peter Skott, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • Book: Structuralist and Behavioral Macroeconomics
  • Online publication: 10 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009367349.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Household Consumption and Saving
  • Peter Skott, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • Book: Structuralist and Behavioral Macroeconomics
  • Online publication: 10 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009367349.004
Available formats
×