Household Consumption and Dispersed Information

Abstract

By introducing an information friction to a heterogeneous agent model, we are able to explain two patterns of small economies experiencing large income changes: (1) excess volatility in consumption and (2) household consumption elasticities that have low correlation with income. With a standard dispersed information structure, households cannot distinguish aggregate income shocks from idiosyncratic ones. Their consumption responds excessively to aggregate shocks, which they incorrectly forecast to be too persistent. This effect occurs homogeneously across the income distribution, lowering the correlation of the consumption elasticity with income. We corroborate our central mechanism using survey data on household expectations of their future earnings.