This paper estimates the importance of temptation (Gul and Pesendorfer, 2001) for consumption smoothing and asset accumulation in a structural life-cycle model. We use two complementary estimation strategies: first, we estimate the Euler equation of this model; and second we match liquid and illiquid wealth accumulation using the Method of Simulated Moments. We find that the utility cost of temptation is one-quarter of the utility benefit of consumption. Further, we show that allowing for temptation is crucial for correctly estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution: estimates of the EIS are substantially higher than without temptation. Finally, our Method of Simulated Moments estimation is able to match well the life-cycle accumulation profiles for both liquid and illiquid wealth only if temptation is part of the preference specification. Our findings on the importance of temptation are robust to the different estimation strategies.

In this paper, we make three substantive contributions. First, we use elicited subjective income expectations to identify the levels of permanent and transitory income shocks in a lifecycle framework. Second, we use these shocks to assess whether households’ consumption is insulated from them. Third, we use the shock data to estimate an Euler equation for consumption. We find that households are able to smooth transitory shocks, but adjust their consumption in response to permanent shocks, albeit not fully. The estimates of the Euler equation parameters with and without expectational errors are similar, which is consistent with rational expectations. We break new ground by combining data on subjective expectations about future income from the Michigan Survey with microdata on actual income from the Consumer Expenditure Survey.

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This paper investigates the role of subjective income expectations in shaping consumption dynamics of European economies in the last decade. We make two main contributions. We first exploit the joint availability of income expectations and realizations in a unique micro panel-dataset to identify the levels of transitory and permanent income shocks at the individual level. We then evaluate whether these calculated income shocks can help to explain contractions in aggregate consumption over the two most recent crisis. We find strong evidence that consumption behavior during the 2012-2013 crisis can be explained by the observed income shocks, but the same is not true of the 2008-2009 crisis.