Household Consumption at Retirement: a Regression Discontinuity Study on French Data

Article dans une revue: Previous literature has investigated the drop in household consumption after the retirement of the household head, referred to as the so-called 'retirement consumption puzzle'. This article expands on these studies by taking the retirement of the wife into consideration, thus distinguishing between 'dualearner' households and those in which the wife is a 'housewife'. A regression discontinuity approach is used to estimate the effect of each partner's retirement on household consumption. The analysis data are derived from the 2001 French Consumer Budget Survey that collected two-week expenditure diaries. The findings indicate a significant and sizable decrease in clothing expenditure upon the retirement of the male partner.

Auteur(s)

Nicolas Moreau, Elena Stancanelli

Revue
  • Annales d’Economie et de Statistique
Collection
  • Special issue on the Economics of gender
Date de publication
  • 2015
Mots-clés JEL
C1 C21 D12 J14 J22
Mots-clés
  • Household Consumption
  • Retirement
  • Regression discontinuity
  • Ageing
Pages
  • 253-276
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 115-117