Consumption Over the Life Cycle
利用合成队列方法和消费者支出调查数据，构建不同教育及职业群体家庭在职业生涯中的平均消费与收入年龄曲线，并估计最优生命周期消费模型，发现消费者行为在约43岁前后从缓冲存货行为转向确定性等价行为。
This paper employs a synthetic cohort technique and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to construct average age-profiles of consumption and income over the working lives of typical households across different education and occupation groups. Even after controlling for family and cohort effects, typical consumption profiles are not flat, and seem to track income at young ages. Using these profiles, we estimate a structural model of optimal life-cycle consumption expenditures in the presence of realistic income uncertainty. The model fits the profiles quite well. In addition to providing tight estimates of the discount rate and risk aversion, we find that consumer behavior changes strikingly over the life-cycle. Young consumers behave as "buffer-stock" agents. Around age 43, the typical household starts accumulating liquid assets for retirement and its behavior mimics more closely that of a certainty equivalent consumer. This change in behavior is mostly driven by the life-cycle profile of expected income. Our methodology provides a natural decomposition of saving into its precautionary and retirement components.