"Cyclical behaviour of consumption of non-durable goods : Spain versus U.S.A."

  1. Lores Ínsua, Francisco Xavier
Revista:
Documentos de trabajo. Economic series ( Universidad Carlos III. Departamento de Economía )

Año de publicación: 2001

Número: 47

Tipo: Documento de Trabajo

Resumen

This paper studies the excessive volatility of Spanish aggregate non-durables consumption with relation to aggregate income. In this paper we stress the importance of non-durables imports over the variability of total non-durables consumption and we propose a theoretical model that formalizes the relation between domestic and imported consumption. The main finding of the paper is that a model of intertemporal optimization where there is no credit constrain or government can produce so high volatilities of consumption as the ones observed.