An Empirical Analysis of Saving Behavior and Automobile Expenditure Based on the Consumer Expenditure Survey

本项目利用消费者支出调查分析了两个重要问题：20世纪80年代S时期储蓄行为的决定因素，以及耐用性和交易成本对消费者选择的影响。消费者支出(CEX)调查是劳工统计局进行的一项大型调查，目的是收集用于计算消费者价格指数权重的信息。自1980年以来，这项调查一直定期进行，具有轮换小组的性质。该数据集的独特之处在于，它是美国唯一一个拥有详细和完整的消费者支出信息的微观数据集。这一信息得到了大量家庭特征数据的补充。因此，数据集为调查者提供了丰富的经济信息，而到目前为止，这些信息只被部分分析过。有了关于消费支出、收入和家庭特征的详细数据，就可以对储蓄行为进行详细分析。该项目的第一个目标是确定1980年代总储蓄下降的最有可能的原因。将特别注意群体效应和生命周期效应，以及收入水平和分配的变化。其他因素的数量重要性，如教育、住房保有权决定、家庭组成等也将被考虑在内。该项目的第二个目标是分析美国家庭的汽车支出，将在跨期选择的结构模型框架内进行。两个因素将是分析的中心：对耐用服务和非耐用支出之间不可分离的跨期偏好选择的影响，以及在改变耐用品库存方面存在的交易成本。对这些问题的审议比大多数现有的关于可持续支出的文献以及更广泛地说关于消费的跨期分配的文献有了很大的改进。

This project uses the Consumer Expenditure Survey to analyze two important problems: the determinants of saving behavior in the 1980's and the influence of durability and transaction costs on consumer choices. The Consumer Expenditure (CEX) Survey is a large survey carried out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to collect the information used to compute the weights of the consumer price indexes. Since 1980 the Survey has been conducted on a regular basis and has the nature of a rotating panel. The data set is unique in the sense that it is the only US micro data set which has detailed and complete information on consumer expenditure. This information is complemented by data on a large number of household characteristics. The data set, therefore, provides the investigator with a wealth of economic information which has heretofore been only partially analyzed. The availability of detailed data on consumption expenditure, income and household characteristics permits a detailed analysis of saving behavior. The first aim of the project is to determine the most likely causes of the decline in aggregate savings in the 1980s. Particular attention will be paid to cohort and life cycle effects as well as to changes in the level and distribution of income. The quantitative significance of other factors, like education, housing tenure decisions, family composition, etc. will also be considered. The second aim of the project, the analysis of vehicle expenditure by US households, will be framed within a structural model of intertemporal choice. Two elements will be at the center of the analysis: the implications for intertemporal choices of preferences which are non-separable between durable services and non-durable expenditure, and of the presence of transaction costs in changing the stock of durables. The consideration of these issues constitutes a substantial improvement over most of the existing literature on durable expenditures and, more generally, on intertemporal allocation of consumption.