If consumers have finite lives, the aggregate consumption growth equation is affected by entries and exits (births and deaths). We use two-and three-period overlapping-generations (OLG) models to show that entries and exits produce a relationship between aggregate consumption growth and the interest rate that is fundamentally different from the individual Euler equation for consumption. If aggregate data are used to estimate an `aggregate' Euler equation, under plausible assumptions we show that the estimate of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is downward biased and that consumption growth exhibits excess sensitivity to labor income.
Authors
Research Fellow
Orazio is an International Research Fellow at the IFS, a Professor at Yale and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Research Associate University of Padua
Guglielmo is a Research Associate at the IFS and Professor in the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Statistics, Padua University.
Journal article details
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Issue
- January 1995
Suggested citation
Attanasio, O and Weber, G. (1995). 'On the Aggregation of Euler Equations for Consumption in Simple Overlapping-Generations Models' (1995)
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