TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hubbard,R. Glenn
AU  - Skinner,Jonathan
AU  - Zeldes,Stephen P.
TI  - The Importance of Precautionary Motives in Explaining Individual and    Aggregate Saving
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4516
PY  - 1994
Y2  - November 1994
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4516
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4516.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
R. Glenn Hubbard
Graduate School of Business
Columbia University, 101 Uris Hall
3022 Broadway
New York, NY  10027
Tel: 212/854-3493
Fax: 212/864-6184
E-Mail: rgh1@columbia.edu, ws2187@columbia.edu

Jonathan S. Skinner
Department of Economics
6106 Rockefeller Hall
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755
Tel: 603/646-2535
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: jonathan.skinner@dartmouth.edu

Stephen P. Zeldes
Graduate School of Business
Columbia University
3022 Broadway, Uris 825
New York, NY 10027-6902
Tel: 212/854-2492
Fax: 212/208-4699
E-Mail: stephen.zeldes@columbia.edu
AB  - This paper examines predictions of a life-cycle simulation model -- in which individuals face uncertainty regarding their length of life, earnings, and out-of-pocket medical expenditures, and imperfect insurance and lending markets -- for individual and aggregate wealth accumulation.  Relative to life-cycle or buffer-stock alternatives, our augmented life-cycle model better matches a variety of features of U.S. data, including: (1) aggregate wealth, (2) cross-sectional differences in wealth-age and consumption-age profiles by education group, and (3) short-run time-series co-movements of consumption and income.
ER  -