Intertemporal Choice and Inequality

Angus Deaton and Christina Paxson

No 4328, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We show that standard models of intertemporal choice, including the permanent income hypothesis, imply that for any given cohort of people born at the same time, inequality in both consumption and income will grow with age. At any given date, each individual's consumption depends on the integral of unanticipated earnings shocks up to that date, so that consumption becomes more dispersed with time. If earnings are not themselves similarly dispersing, assets will do so, so that the dispersion of total income will increase, irrespective of the behavior of earnings. Because the result applies to an increase in inequality over time within a given age cohort, it has no immediate implications for the behavior of inequality in the economy as a whole, and is consistent with constant aggregate inequality over time. Cohort data are constructed from 11 years of household survey data from the U.S., 22 years from Great Britain, and 14 years from Taiwan. They show that within-cohort consumption and income inequality does indeed grow with age in all three economies, and that the rate of increase is broadly similar in all three.

JEL-codes: D31 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993-04
Note: AG EFG
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published as Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 102, no. 3 (1994): 437-467.

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Journal Article: Intertemporal Choice and Inequality (1994)
Working Paper: Intertemporal Choice and Inequality (1993)
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