Contenu du sommaire : Comportements des ménages

The Intertemporal Allocation of Consumption: Recent Developments, by Jérôme Adda. This article presents recent developments in the theory of the intertemporal distribution of consumption and savings. We use as our starting point the model of permanent income with rational expectations. This model does not account for the low volatility of consumer spending compared with income or the excessive sensitivity of current income to fluctuations. Recent developments have therefore introduced a number of extensions. A study of careful behaviour is used to analyze prudential saving and better take into account the effects of risk on consumer spending. Cash flow constraints explain the link between consumption and current income. Lastly, a study of utility functions that are inseparable over time explains the persistence of consumption and is used to model consumption habits and purchases of durable goods.

Common Trends and Cycles in Consumer Spending and Income: Implications for the Permanent Income Model, by Thomas Jobert. The Engle and Kozicki formulation of cofeatures can be used to represent common trends-common cycles in a multivariate version of the Beveridge-Nelson distribution. We examine the common trends-common cycles structure for consumer spending and disposable income as implied by Hall's permanent income model and Flavin's excess sensitivity model. Using a VECM, we propose a method for estimating the cofeature vector as well as a test for the existence of cofeatures based on linear restrictions across equations. The two models are tested on France and the United States. Consumption is found to display excess sensitivity to income, but a specification test leads us to reject Flavin's alternative model.

What Is Behind the Unexpected Rise in the Household Savings Rate since 1990? by Xavier Bonnet and Eric Dubois. The increase in the household savings rate since 1990 cannot be explained by a traditional consumption equation with income and inflation effects. This paper starts by showing that the absence of empirical breaks in the way in which these variables have formed over the recent period means that this result cannot be empirically justified using the theoretically pertinent Lucas critique. It goes on to look at the theoretically important determining factors behind this savings behaviour (wealth and propensity to spend income differently). Only the growth in prudential saving in a period of rising unemployment and the increased sensitivity of savings to real interest rates in a period of high real interest rates are found to have some justification.

Further Study of the Household Savings Rate, by Pierre Sicsic and Jean-Pierre Villetelle. In line with the Bonnet and Dubois article in this issue, we also observe gaps in the most basic consumer spending equation linking consumption, income and inflation. Factoring in fluctuations in short-term consumer loans to households stabilizes the coefficients, which growth in the unemployment rate is unable to do. Factoring in the real interest rate in the same way as Bonnet and Dubois provides an equation with properties similar to that including short-term consumer loans, on the condition that we admit the influence of a dummy variable limited to the 1986-1990 period. This reveals that the greatest anomaly is in the low savings rate level from 1986 to 1990 rather than during the most recent period.

The Timing of First-Home Ownership: Whose Income Matters the Most? by Greg Duncan, Johanne Boisjoly and Sandra Hofferth. Purchasing a house or apartment is an important economic event in the lives of young adults. We analyze the timing of first-home purchases in the United States using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. In particular, we assess the relative influence on this decision of the parents' past and present income and that of the young adults themselves. We find that the young adult's own combined income is most important, as shown by the significant effects for income earned in three of the four years prior to the purchase.

Can Children Be Counted On to Look After their Parents in their Old Age? The Malaysian Example, by Antoine Bommier. In a period of swift demographic and economic change, it is essential to understand intergenerational transfer behaviour to be able to develop suitable socio-economic policies. This article studies the transfers from adults to their parents in Malaysia. We find that a family's children behave independently of each other, with the relationship between the assistance received by senior citizens and their number of children being a mere additive process. Adults are motivated to make assist their parents mainly in return for transfers received during childhood, in particular for education, but also out of good will and as a guarantee. However, we find no evidence of strategic behaviour. An analysis of transfers to the husband's parents separately from those to the wife's parents reveals that transfers depend to a great extent on the distribution of income within the household. This phenomenon, independent of any labour supply endogeny, forms the basis for the rejection of the traditional microeconomic models considering a single utility function at household level.

Is There a Division of Labour in the Extended Family? by Guy Lacroix, Michel Picot and Catherine Sofer. Labour supply analysis has shown the need to shift from the individual to the household, and then from the unitary household to the household as a place of strategic interactions. Yet is the household really the appropriate reference unit to be considering? Or should an analysis integrate additional data on the extended family (grandparents, adult children and households of one brother or one sister) in which a certain number of households interact and exchange a certain number of services? This article proposes a labour supply model focusing on the extended family and based on the use of a single utility function for the extended family. We test the hypothesis of a Ricardian division of labour in the extended family based on the estimate of a reduced version of the initial model and using a survey by INSEE, Gedisst and the CNRS to analyze exchanges between members of the family network. The results confirm the time allocation model in the extended family and thus the existence of interaction between the behaviour of the different households making up the extended family.

Rationing in Demand Systems: Calculation of Virtual Prices, by Léon Bettendorf and Anton Barten. Virtual prices are essential for showing equivalence between demand theories with and without rationing (Neary and Roberts, 1980). Virtual prices are defined as a set of prices encouraging a non-rationed consumer to voluntarily consume the rationed level. This article proposes a methodology for evaluating virtual prices from estimates of complete demand systems. By way of illustration, a Rotterdam model and a CBS model, both with rationing, are estimated from Belgian data for the period between the two world wars. The virtual prices are subsequently calculated for spending on housing, which was rationed during this period.

An Econometric Study of Theatre Demand Based on Individual Data, by Louis Lévy-Garboua and Claude Montmarquette. This article sets out to apply demand theory to the theatre. We adapt the theory to include the unknown factor inherent in this eternally personal choice and also the accumulation of theatre-going experience. The demand model developed incorporates learning-by-consuming so as to infer price elasticities for survey data from the measurement of experience and preferences. Also factored in are income and the full price - in time and money - of a trip to the theatre, the quality of the service, and preferences for the theatre and substitute leisure activities. We use a unique survey of a sample of the French population aged 15 years and over (n = 7,970) carried out by the French Ministry of Culture in 1987. This survey identifies intersecting subsamples of spectators over the last four years and over the last year. We use the OLS method, bivariate probit analysis and the Tobit technique to analyze the probabilities of theatre-going in general, over the last year and the frequency of trips to the theatre taking into account selectivity biases. We find that theatre demand is price elastic. Moreover, by making a distinction between unconditional and conditional choices, we add a dynamic interpretation to the effects measured from survey data. This enables us to make an ordinal interpretation of reported satisfaction with theatre plays, which is also analyzed in this article. This idea can be applied to socio-economic surveys on the satisfaction and attitudes of players without having to use a cardinal measurement.

Hedonic Prices and a Structural Model Estimate of the Supply and Demand of Characteristics: Application to the French Rental Housing Market, by Olivier Marchand and Eric Skhiri . This hedonic price analysis is one of the first to be made of the French rental housing market. The data are taken from cross-sectional surveys in eight French towns (excluding the Paris area). A Box-Cox transformation is used to obtain the best functional form. The hedonic regression is found to be fairly satisfactory with 66% of variance explained by the model. Furthermore, a structural model of the supply and demand of characteristics is validated. The problem of simultaneity is solved by using the town dummy as an instrumental variable. We therefore make the first attempt to estimate the factors of the supply and demand of characteristics in France.

The Cost of Female Activity: An Estimate Using a Conditional Demand Model, by Anne Pascal and Jean-Marc Robin. The article opens with an overview of economic literature concerning the modeling of personal consumption and labour supply choices when incorporating labour market participation costs (childminding, etc.). We then use data from the 1985 French Family Budgets survey to estimate the relationships between household demand for goods and services and total demand for goods and services (Engel curves) conditioned by female activity using M. Browning and C. Meghir's 1991 methodology. It appears that households allocate the same budget differently to goods depending on whether the woman works part time, full time or not at all.

Is Utility Relative? An Analysis Based on Household Data, by Andrew Clark. This study uses recent data from a survey of British households to help analyze the effects of comparisons within the individual utility function. Job satisfaction is strongly and negatively correlated with the spouse's wage as well as with the average wage of the other wage earners in the household. Moreover, there is a kink at the level of the individual's wage: a low wage is all the more unsatisfactory when it is lower than the spouse's wage or the average wage of the other wage earners in the household. These results are consistent with a relative evaluation of income in which the reference group includes the other wage earners in the household.