The Neoclassical life cycle (permanent income) hypothesis states that consumption should not respond to predictable movements in income. On the other hand, recent empirical studies (e.g. Campbell and Mankiw [1989,1990,1991]) have rejected the hypothesis using aggregate time series data. A possible explanation for this rejection is that consumers cannot smooth out their consumption path because of liquidity (credit) constraint, but consumer credit has not figured prominently in consumption theories or empirical studies. Using two credit variables (consumer and mortgage credit), Bacchetta and Gerlach [1997] directly test whether consumers are credit constrained and find the positive relationship between the predicable credit variables and consumption.
The purpose of this paper is to see whether credit variables matter to consumption by reexamining their tests over the period 1977:3-1998:3. The results support that consumption is strongly correlated with predicable consumer credit, rather than mortgage credit. This means that changes in credit availability, or growth in consumer credit may stimulate household consumption if consumers are credit constrained.
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