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Measurement errors and the permanent income hypothesis: Evidence from rural India

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TLDR
In this paper, an extension of Friedman's permanent income model by explicitly allowing for the distinction between pure measurement errors and transitory terms in the observed variables allows implementation of valid and direct tests of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH).
Abstract
An extension of Friedman's permanent income model by explicitly allowing for the distinction between pure measurement errors and transitory terms in the observed variables allows implementation of valid and direct tests of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH). These tests do not need the measurement error associated with each individual's income per se; rather, only the variance of these errors is necessary. The extended model also makes possible a correct comparison between the traditional and permanent income theory of consumer behavior. Neither hypothesis is supported in full. The contention of the PIH that measured consumption elasticities are downwardly biased estimates of the true permanent elasticities is supported by the data. The importance of the bias caused by measurement errors is revealed at all stages of the analysis. The large magnitude of error variances suggests that researchers should be more cautious than usual with one-shot survey data. Discussions of data and definitions used and the derivation of measurement error variances are appended. 14 references.

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The analysis of household surveys

Angus Deaton
TL;DR: Deaton as discussed by the authors reviewed the analysis of household survey data, including the construction of household surveys, the econometric tools useful for such analysis, and a range of problems in development policy for which this survey analysis can be applied.
Book ChapterDOI

Do the poor insure? A synthesis of the literature on risk and consumption in developing countries

TL;DR: The authors reviewed various strategies for insuring consumption against income fluctuations, and examined evidence on how effectively these strategies work and found that households in developing countries make use of a wide variety of mechanisms, often informal, to at least partially limit consumption risk.
Journal ArticleDOI

Saving in Developing Countries: Theory and Review

TL;DR: The authors developed a model of households which cannot borrow but which accumulate assets as a buffer stock to protect consumption when incomes are low, and found that such households dissave as often as they save, do not accumulate assets over the long term, and have on average very small asset holdings.

Mexico - Investing cash transfers to raise long term living standards

TL;DR: In this article, the authors found that poor rural Mexican households invested part of their cash transfers from the oportunidades program in productive assets, increasing agricultural income by almost 10 percent after 18 months of benefits.
Journal ArticleDOI

Consumption and Income Seasonality in Thailand

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate whether household consumption expenditure tracks income across seasons and find little evidence that consumption tracks income over the course of the year, rather than being the result of seasonal variations in preferences or prices, common to all households.
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A Theory of the Consumption Function

TL;DR: Friedman as mentioned in this paper proposed a new theory of the consumption function, tested it against extensive statistical J material and suggests some of its significant implications, including the sharp distinction between two concepts of income, measured income, or that which is recorded for a particular period, and permanent income, a longer-period concept in terms of which consumers decide how much to spend and how much they save.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Lognormal Distribution.

TL;DR: Lloyds Bank has its main root in a substantial private bank founded in Birmingham nearly two centuries ago; one hundred years ago this Bank still had only the one office in Birmingham, with a related private banking house in Lombard Street, and by amalgamation it has absorbed scores of other eighteenth and nineteenth century banks, both private and joint stock, and at least two of the former reach back into Restoration London, perhaps Cromwellian London.
Book

The lognormal distribution

TL;DR: Lloyds Bank has its main root in a substantial private bank founded in Birmingham nearly two centuries ago; one hundred years ago this Bank still had only the one office in Birmingham, with a related private banking house in Lombard Street, and by amalgamation it has absorbed scores of other eighteenth and nineteenth century banks, both private and joint stock, and at least two of the former reach back into Restoration London, perhaps Cromwellian London.
Journal ArticleDOI

On the Exact Variance of Products

TL;DR: In this paper, a simple exact formula for the variance of the product of two random variables, say, x and y, is given as a function of the means and central product-moments of x and Y. The usual approximate variance formula for xy is compared with this exact formula; e.g., the variance computed by the approximate formula is less than the exact variance, and the accuracy of the approximation depends on the sum of the reciprocals of the squared coefficients of variation of X and y.