THE BEHAVIORAL LIFE‐CYCLE HYPOTHESIS

Economic Inquiry - Tập 26 Số 4 - Trang 609-643 - 1988
Hersh Shefrin, Richard H. Thaler1
1*Professor, Department of Economics, Santa Clara University, and H. J. Louis Professor of Economics, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. We wish to thank Franco Modigliani for providing many thoughtful comments on a previous draft of this paper. Thaler would also like to thank the Behavioral Economics Program at the Sloan Foundation for financial support.

Tóm tắt

Self‐control, mental accounting, and framing are incorporated in a behavioral enrichment of the life‐cycle theory of saving called the Behavioral Life‐Cycle (BLC) hypothesis. The key assumption of the BLC theory is that households treat components of their wealth as nonfungible, even in the absence of credit rationing. Specifically, wealth is assumed to be divided into three mental accounts: current income, current assets, and future income. The temptation to spend is assumed to be greatest for current income and least for future income. Considerable empirical support for the BLC theory is presented, primarily drawn from published econometric studies.

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