Uncertainty and Consumer Durables Adjustment
研究不确定性如何影响消费者对耐用品存量的最优调整，利用包含详细耐用品数据和主观收入不确定性度量的数据集，检验理论预测。
We study the effect of uncertainty on optimal adjustment of durable good stocks, and confront the relevant theoretical insights with a data set featuring extensive information on disaggregated durable goods and subjective measures of future income uncertainty. We discuss the intertemporal optimization problem of a consumer who derives utility both from non-durable consumption ows and from use of durable goods, in the presence of adjustment costs and idiosyncratic income uncertainty. The model delivers implications for the cross-sectional distribution of the durable/non durable ratio, the probability of adjustment, and the size of adjustment. We discuss observable counterparts of such features and assess the extent to which empirical evidence conforms with theoretical predictions. In so doing, we identify and exploit exclusion restrictions based on the distinction between cross-sectional heterogeneity of the sampled households' dynamic problems, and history-dependend variation in their situation at the beginning of the observation period. We argue that the latter should bear on the likelihood but not the size of stock adjustment decisions, and find broad support for theoretical predictions in formal selection-controlled regressions based on this simple insight.