Sticky Expectations and Consumption Dynamics
Macroeconomic models often invoke consumption “habits” to explain the substantial persistence of aggregate consumption growth. But a large literature has found no evidence of habits in microeconomic datasets that measure the behavior of individual households. We show that the apparent conflict can be explained by a model in which consumers have accurate knowledge of their personal circumstances but ‘sticky expectations’ about the macroeconomy. In our model, the persistence of aggregate consumption growth reflects consumers’ imperfect attention to aggregate shocks. Our proposed degree of (macro) inattention has negligible utility costs, because aggregate shocks constitute only a tiny proportion of the uncertainty that consumers face.
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Copy CitationChristopher D. Carroll, Edmund Crawley, Jiri Slacalek, Kiichi Tokuoka, and Matthew N. White, "Sticky Expectations and Consumption Dynamics," NBER Working Paper 24377 (2018), https://doi.org/10.3386/w24377.
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Published Versions
Christopher D. Carroll & Edmund Crawley & Jiri Slacalek & Kiichi Tokuoka & Matthew N. White, 2020. "Sticky Expectations and Consumption Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, vol 12(3), pages 40-76. citation courtesy of 
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