Slow Information Diffusion and the Inertial Behavior of Durable Consumption. Issue 5 (1st October 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Luo, Yulei; Nie, Jun; Young, Eric R.
• Is Part Of: Journal of the European Economic Association. Volume 13:Issue 5(2015:Oct.)
• Page Start: 805
• Page End: 840
• Publication Date: 2015-10-01
• Subjects: C61 -- D81 -- E21; Economics -- Periodicals; Économie politique -- Périodiques; Science économique; Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 330
• DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12125
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1542-4766

Abstract

Abstract: This paper studies the aggregate dynamics of durable and nondurable consumption under slow information diffusion (SID) due to noisy observations and learning within the permanent income hypothesis framework. We show that SID can significantly improve the model's predictions on the joint behavior of income, durable consumption, and nondurable consumption at the aggregate level. Specifically, we find that SID can significantly improve the model's predictions for: (i) smoothness in durable and nondurable consumption, (ii) autocorrelation of durable consumption, and (iii) contemporaneous correlation between durable and nondurable consumption.