Testing the Optimality of Consumption Decisions of the Representative Household: Evidence from Brazil

Marcos Gesteira and Carlos Enrique Carrasco Gutierrez
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Carlos Enrique Carrasco-Gutierrez

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper investigates whether there is a fraction of consumers that do not behave as fully forward-looking optimal consumers in the Brazilian economy. The generalized method of moments technique was applied to nonlinear Euler equations of the consumption-based capital assets model contemplating utility functions with time separability and non-separability. The results show that when the household utility function was modeled as constant relative risk aversion, external habits and Kreps-Porteus, estimates of the fraction of rule-of-thumb households was, respectively, 89%, 78% and 22%. According to this, a portion of disposable income goes to households who consume their current incomes in violation of the permanent income hypothesis.

Keywords: Rule of thumb; aggregate consumption; permanent income hypothesis, Euler equations. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015, Revised 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Testing the Optimality of Consumption Decisions of the Representative Household: Evidence from Brazil (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:66068

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