EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Anticipation of Future Consumption, Excessive Savings, and Long-Run Growth

Johannes Schünemann (), Holger Strulik and Timo Trimborn
Additional contact information
Johannes Schünemann: University of Göttingen, Department of Economics, Postal: Platz der Göttinger Sieben 3, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Johannes Schünemann

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract: In this paper, we provide a new theory that explains how the anticipation of future consumption leads to excessive savings. We introduce utility from anticipatory consumption into an otherwise standard endogenous growth model and assume that individuals cannot commit to future consumption plans. We show that the associated time-inconsistent decisions lead individuals to save more of their income than planned, and that this behavior increases growth but decreases welfare. We then modify the model to account for time-inconsistent decisions due to hyperbolic discounting, which in and of themselves would result in individuals saving less of their income than planned. By combining the assumptions of anticipatory consumption and hyperbolic discounting, we show that the excessive savings outcome is preserved for the benchmark calibration of the model. We also show that an alternative parameterization of the model exists where hyperbolically discounting individuals stick to their original consumption plan even though there are no commitment devices.

Keywords: Anticipated Consumption; Time-Inconsistency; Over-Saving; Endogenous Growth; Discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 E21 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2023-10-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repec.econ.au.dk/repec/afn/wp/23/wp23_10.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Anticipation of Future Consumption, Excessive Savings, and Long-Run Growth (2024) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:aarhec:2023-10

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:aah:aarhec:2023-10