How does Future Income Affect Current Consumption?
检验生命周期消费模型的一个推论：当前消费取决于预期终身收入。研究发现消费与当前收入紧密相关，但与可预见的收入变化无关；未来收入不确定性显著抑制消费，支持预防性储蓄的“缓冲库存”模型。
This paper tests a straightforward implication of the basic Life Cycle model of consumption: that current consumption depends on expected lifetime income. The paper projects future income for a panel of households and finds that consumption is closely related to projected current income, but unrelated to predictable changes in income. However, future income uncertainty has an important effect: consumers facing greater income uncertainty consume less. The results are consistent with "buffer-stock" models of consumption like those of Deaton [1991] or Carroll [1992a, 1992b], where precautionary motives greatly reduce the willingness of prudent consumers to consume out of uncertain future income.