Why Is Consumption More Log Normal than Income? Gibrat's Law Revisited

被引：68

作者：

Battistin, Erich ^{[1
]}

Blundell, Richard ^{[2
,3
]}

Lewbel, Arthur ^{[4
]}

机构：

[1] Univ Padua, I-35100 Padua, Italy

[2] UCL, London WC1E 6BT, England

[3] Inst Fiscal Studies, London, England

[4] Boston Coll, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167 USA

来源：

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY | 2009年 / 117卷 / 06期

基金：

英国经济与社会研究理事会;

关键词：

INEQUALITY;

D O I：

10.1086/648995

中图分类号：

F [经济];

学科分类号：

02 ;

摘要：

Significant departures from log normality are observed in income data, in violation of Gibrat's law. We show empirically that the distribution of consumption expenditures across households is, within cohorts, closer to log normal than the distribution of income. We explain this empirical result by showing that the logic of Gibrat's law applies not to total income, but to permanent income and to marginal utility.

引用

页码：1140 / 1154

页数：15