The Life-Cycle Model of Consumption and Saving
综述了生命周期模型中消费平滑的实证证据，发现包含现实市场与商品特征的模型在经验上成功多于失败，且某些理论偏差带来的福利损失很小。
A central implication of life-cycle models is that agents smooth consumption. We review the empirical evidence on smoothing at frequencies from within the year up to across a lifetime. We find that life-cycle models--particular those which incorporate realistic features of markets and goods--have more empirical successes than failures. We also show that some apparent deviations from theoretical predictions imply very small welfare losses for agents. Finally, we emphasize that the coherence of life-cycle models imposes an important discipline when incorporating new features into models.