Tim Miller > Curriculum Vitae > Abstract Page

by Ronald Lee and Timothy Miller

Consumption and labor earnings differ markedly from one another over the life cycle. These differences are made possible by various kinds of reallocations from one age to another. The reallocations take many forms from social security to familial bequests to personal loans. At any age, the average discrepancy between consumption and labor earnings is the sum of these reallocations. The goal of this paper is simply to describe these reallocations from one age group to another. We draw on the 1991 Consumer Expenditure Survey. These various kinds of transfers and reallocations are shown to differ very markedly by age. It is precisely because these and other activities vary by age that the age distribution of the population matters to the economy, society and public sector. Age profiles of the sort presented here form the basis of attempts to assess some of the more striking consequences of population aging.

Paper presented at the 1995 Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America.

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