"Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the United States has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has increased significantly for income but little for consumption. We then develop a simple framework that allows us to analytically characterize how within-group income inequality affects consumption inequality in a world in which agents can trade a full set of contingent consumption claims, subject to endogenous constraints emanating from the limited enforcement of intertemporal contracts (as in Kehoe and Levine, 1993). Finally, we quantitatively evaluate, in the context of a calibrated general equilibrium production economy, whether this setup, or alternatively a standard incomplete markets model (as in Aiyagari, 1994), can account for the documented stylized consumption inequality facts from the U.S.data"--Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis web site.

The paper studies how high leverage and crises can arise as a result of changes in the income distribution. Empirically, the periods 1920-1929 and 1983-2008 both exhibited a large increase in the income share of the rich, a large increase in leverage for the remainder, and an eventual financial and real crisis. The paper presents a theoretical model where these features arise endogenously as a result of a shift in bargaining powers over incomes. A financial crisis can reduce leverage if it is very large and not accompanied by a real contraction. But restoration of the lower income group's bargaining power is more effective.

. . . provides an excellent example of economic analysis using atypical analytical approaches. . . the book is very accessible, especially to readers with some grounding in economics. Mathematical models and empirical evidence are appropriately used and the writing is superb. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students should be able to follow the analysis and will benefit from seeing the alternative analytics at work. Of course economists of all stripes will find something useful in this book as will anyone with a strong interest in understanding the current economic crisis. Richard V. Adkisson, The Social Science Journal For those who do not mind a stimulating read, the book by Christopher Brown, Inequality, Consumer Credit and the Saving Puzzle, is recommended. . . the book is exciting, tracing the causes for the uncommonly low savings rate in American households. . . this book is written in nearly colloquial language and easily understood. It is divided into eight chapters, each of which addresses one theme group, respectively. The author evaluates in detail literary sources, and also examines alternative approaches, but always returns to his line of thought. Relationships that he perceives as important are exemplified through small models. In addition to that, he always attempts to support the central thesis with statistics. In particular, to read those statistics is very exciting. Conclusion: a book definitely worth reading. Friedrich Thießen, Bankhistorisches Archiv Brown makes an important contribution to the field of consumer credit by presenting a broad view of the issues and problems associated with growing consumer credit habits, culture, and institutions. . . This book effectively uses a heterodox methodology, which will appeal to a wide audience of social scientists. Highly recommended. R.H. Scott, Choice Providing much needed context for current events like the sub-prime mortgage crisis, this timely book presents a vision of an economy evolved to greater dependence on consumer credit and analyzes the trade-offs and risks associated with it. While synthesizing the Keynesian theory of consumption with the Institutional theory of habit selection (brought up to date with new knowledge from evolutionary biology and neuroscience), this book represents an in-depth treatment of the macroeconomic dimensions of consumer credit and implications of recent financial innovations from a non-traditional economic approach. Some of the effects of consumer credit dependence include the potential for illiquidity in markets for debt-collateralized securities, sub-prime contagion, or the possibility of a Minsky-type debt deflation episode. The author also argues that a sharp increase in borrowing by US households over the past 20 years, aided by financial innovations such as the securitization of consumer loans and sub-prime lending, have lessened the harmful consequences of income inequality, and that the collapse of personal saving after 1993 is actually a gradual trend of consumer habits conforming to the imperatives of corporatism. The book s primary audience will be academic economists in sympathy with heterodox and pluralist approaches. It sets forth an institutional or top-down theory of household spending behavior that should be of interest to readers in fields such as sociology, consumer or family studies, psychology, or anthropology. Much of the book is technically accessible for non-economists and students.

This paper first documents the evolution of the cross-sectional income and consumption distribution in the US in the past 25 years. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey we find that a rising income inequality has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Over the period from 1972 to 1998 the standard deviation of the log of after-tax labor income has increased by 20% while the standard deviation of log consumption has increased less than 2%. Furthermore income inequality has increased both between and within education groups while consumption inequality has increased between education groups but mildly declined within groups. We then argue that these empirical findings are consistent with the hypothesis that an increase in income volatility has been an important cause of the increase in income inequality, but at the same time has lead to an endogenous development of credit markets, allowing households to better smooth their consumption against idiosyncratic income fluctuations. We develop a consumption model in which the sharing of income risk is limited by imperfect enforcement of credit contracts and in which the development of financial markets depends on the volatility of the individual income process. This model is shown to be quantitatively consistent with the joint evolution of income and consumption inequality in US, while other commonly used consumption models are not