Understanding Consumption

This book provides an overview of recent research on saving and consumption, a field in which substantial progress has been made over the last decade. Attempts by economists to understand saving and consumption patterns have generated some of the best science in economics. For more than fifty years, there has been serious empirical and theoretical activity--never separating data, theory, and policy as has happened in many branches of economics. Research has drawn microeconomists interested in household behavior, as well as macroeconomists, for whom the behavior of aggregate consumption has…