Commonly used consumption/saving models have radically different implications for households response to income shocks, ranging from the hands-to-mouth model, where consumption bears all the adjustment, to the complete markets model, where wealth bears all the adjustment. In this paper we use

Economic disruptions generally coincide with heightened uncertainty.

efficiency of new cars sold. However, the success of these Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) restrictions depends crucially on whether inducing households to drive more fuel efficient cars causes them to drive more miles, which would offset some or all of the reduction in gasoline consumption. We examine

Households in rural India are highly dependent on firewood as their main source of energy, partly because non-biofuels tend to be expensive. Given the widespread forest degradation across much of the country, how do these households meet their demand for energy? Data from a survey of 539 households

Recent research on wealth and household finances seeks to blend neoclassical models with an understanding of real-world imperfections to answer questions about why some people save and others do not. This paper focuses on Baby Boomers standing on the verge of retirement, many of whom have saved

This chapter provides new evidence on the effects of fi scal policy by study-ing (using household- level data) how households respond to a shift in gov-ernment spending. Evidence based on micro data is interesting for three reasons. First, individual households ’ data allow us to identify how

How do households respond to overseas membersÕ economic shocks? Overseas Filipinos in dozens of countries experienced sudden, heterogeneous changes in exchange rates during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Appreciation of a migrant’s currency against the Philippine peso leads to increases

We use the Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) to document how the consumption of nondurables and durables, capital income and real as well as …nacial wealth change in response to a labor income shock. We …nd that nondurable consumption changes by about 11 cents in response to a 1

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between 1991 and 2002 and found that 44 % of the working-age population had caring responsibilities at any one point in time, while 1 % provided informal care for all eleven years. Other projections using this survey suggest that nearly every-one will be a carer at some point in their lives, and that more than 56 % of women and 40 % of men will be involved in pro-viding informal care for more than 20 hours per week by age 65 (Hirst, 2002). Studies in Australia and overseas indicate that the decision to leave work or remain in paid employment depends on a vari-