The effect of interest rates on consumption in an income fluctuation problem

Ehud Lehrer*, Bar Light

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

We examine the effect of a change in interest rates on an agent's consumption and savings decisions when her income is fluctuating. In each period, a long-lived agent decides how much to save (i.e., invest in a risky bond) and how much to consume while her income and the rate of return on her savings are uncertain and depend on the state of the economy. We show that under the concavity of the consumption function, a condition that ensures that the substitution effect dominates the income effect, lower interest rates encourage the agent's consumption across all states.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)63-71
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Economic Dynamics and Control
Volume94
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2018

Funding

FundersFunder number
Israel Science Foundation#963/15

    Keywords

    • Consumption
    • Dynamics
    • Income fluctuation problem
    • Interest rates
    • Savings

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